Fire?

I pulled out 4 or 5 rather sizeable thorns from my leg today. It’s strange that they don’t really hurt. It’s been over a week since my cactus calamity, and I’m still pulling thorns out.

But I am no more afraid of ‘nopales’ than I was before. Paula and I met up and rode out for a quick ride around Starr Pass.

I left our house at around 3:30 and was met with a terrible headwind. I immediately noticed a taste in the air–of something burning, though it didn’t seem like a forest fire. I looked to the Catalinas and sure enough could barely see them.

I have no problems with 105 degree days — at least you can still ride if you are sufficiently motivated (by waking early or going somewhere high). But the last two summers of raging fires have taken their toll on me. It’s not worth choking on smoke clogged with automobile pollution–even early in the morning when it’s cool.

I guessed that one of the wildfires in the White Mountains was blowing to us lucky residents of Tucson. We could see one of them last week from Mt. Graham, pillowing into the sky.

If I were not meeting Paula midway to the ride, I would have turned around and aborted the ride. But instead I pushed on through the wind, trynig not to breathe deeply. I got hosed on the backstreets trying to get to Grant/Silverbell, running into numerous dead-ends. So I ended up riding a few miles in the bike lane on Grant. Can you say sweet? Where in the world are all these people going? It seems the traffic on the west side has doubled in the last year. It took me 5 minutes to pull a U-turn after I saw Paula riding the other way.

We rode calmly through the trails of Greasewood park then headed towards Starr Pass and the ‘temporary’ entrance. By now my stomach was feeling ill from the air. We decided to make it a very quick loop. Despite the poor air, the windswept valley of Starr Pass was quite a sight. It was definitely not a typical day at Starr Pass.

Out through San Juan, then riding back on the river trail I looked to the Catalinas and could see them! The air had cleared? But how?

I haven’t been able to find anything on the news, but I assume it was some kind of local fire, a building or something, that ruined the air this afternoon. I felt much better riding through campus back home.

We stopped off at ABE to order my ‘trail work’ Blur frame for Steve Anderson. I can’t think of anyone I’d rather it went to. Steve is the hero of Tucson trail access.