Another warm day
right from the start. I’m learning that
means the day only gets hotter. I’m
digging the warmer temps but honestly high 80s into the 90s is a bit much for
me. Good thing about Arizona is the dry
heat component. Yes, 90 is hot no matter
what…but with no humidity it’s a bit easier to cool down. Yesterday on our ride my head was sweating
under my helmet…the heat was kind of brutal.
But 5 minutes after I took my helmet off, my hair was dry. That was nice. What wasn’t so nice was how my hair felt
after several rounds of get sweaty/dry...get sweaty/dry...drive through some
dust…get sweaty/dry. It was feeling kind
of crusty/gritty by the time we got back to camp. Of course, my arms were feeling about the
same. Wearing a thin layer of dust is
just a consequence of being in the desert, I guess.
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Larry the Lizard made an appearance this morning. He hasn't been seen in several days and I was thinking that he had become a tasty lunch for one of the many birds around here. Glad to see he's okay. 😉
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Update on Hannah Hummingbird: We’ve
been gone during the days so I’m not sure if she’s been around working on
her nest. I do know that we haven’t seen
her in the morning before we leave or when we get back in the late
afternoon. So her absence has me
wondering about the timing of nest building to egg laying…if there’s any lag
time or one immediately follows the other.
I wrote to the website worldofhummingbirds.com to
ask them. I wasn’t able to find any
information on their site that addressed that question…I hope they answer. While it would definitely be cool to see her
sitting on her eggs, I’d be happy just knowing that we didn’t scare her away. Whether we see her sitting on her nest or not remains to be seen…what I
do know is that I’m beyond thrilled that we were able to witness the nest
building process. Definitely a high
point in this trip!
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I’m working on slowing down. Not
accomplishing something at a slower speed kind of slowing down…more like
changing my expectations of how to spend my time while on vacation. At home, it
doesn’t take much for me to just sit on the hearth in front of the fireplace and
do nothing but enjoy the heat…maybe read, play Scrabble, or just think. Well,
it’s not really doing nothing because reading or thinking is doing something…so maybe instead of saying ‘doing
nothing’, I should say ‘engaging in a nonproductive activity’. 😉 We
(society) have made vacation into being
a time of relaxation because it’s time away from our normal routine. And
perhaps it's that way for some. However,
to me, doing nothing when I’m on vacation seems like a waste of time. At home, I’m okay with engaging in ‘non-productive
activity’ but when I’m out of my normal routine, it makes me antsy to just sit
around…and it makes me tired. A bored kind of tired, not a not enough sleep
kind of tired. I think I should be out there seeing things, doing things,
experiencing something. Not constantly like
the Energizer bunny but not sitting around like a lump of clay either. There’s middle ground there that I have to
find. We come to Arizona for our winter getaway
to extend our riding season so I’m not saying that I need to figure out how to
sit all day, because I won’t. As long as
Zeus is outside this trailer I will be taking rides to enjoy the weather and open
roads. No, what I need to do is get to a
place where ‘not doing’ is okay...readjusting my mental outlook on what it
means to waste time vs. being still. And
then maybe take that new outlook home with me. I’m a work in progress on this one…my thoughts
about it aren’t real coherent right now but it’ll come. I’m just getting this down on paper so it’s
out of my head and I can think of something else now.😏
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There is a large facility on the outer edge
of Coolidge called the Arizona Training Program. I’ve ridden past it many times and each time
wondered what it is. Then some other
thought would capture my mind and I’d forget to look it up. My guess always was, though, that it was a
military/militia/police training facility where recruits could stay on site
while receiving their training…I based that on the name and the dormitory style
buildings. Kim thought maybe it had
something to do with restaurant employee training. Well, we were both very wrong about what goes
on at the Arizona Training Program. It’s
a state facility for the housing and care of individuals with serious intellectual
or developmental disabilities. It was
known as the Arizona Children’s Colony in its early years…it’s now known as
ATPC (Arizona Training Program Coolidge). A 2016 article on the pinalcentral.com
website, written by Mark Cowling gave me some history as well as its current
standing. Here are some excerpts from
the article:
A total of 87
residents with serious intellectual or developmental disabilities live here. In
the last 64 years, more than 3,000 clients have passed through the doors, and
at its height, 1,079 clients lived here, Key said. But since the Legislature
passed a bill in 1979 to stop further admissions to the ATPC, the numbers have
dwindled and the remaining clients are aging, with the average age being 65.
The oldest is 83.
The campus includes 45
buildings – only half of which are in active use -- on 140 acres south of
Coolidge. Some 350 people work here, nearly all of them full-time.
The ATPC’s mission must
change over the next few years, in part because of a mandate from the US
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid that group home clients need to be out of
institutions, “where there’s more community life and potential for
integration,” Jeffries said.
This affects 21
total clients at ATPC, who live in small group homes of three to five people
each, he said. The other 66 residents are more disabled and live in six
“intermediate care facilities,” or ICFs, on campus.
Other articles report that there are ‘rumors’ that the facility will be
closing its doors soon but there is a sign out by the roadside stating that the
program is hiring.
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When we here earlier in March, we headed over to the frontage road north
of I-10 that parallels the freeway all
the way to Marana, about 26 miles. The
frontage road was impassable at that time…we encountered sand. Oh,
crap, now we have to take the other frontage road or the freeway when we head
east. The frontage road on this side
of I-10 dead ends after about 10 miles and is in rough condition. But it’s what we’re stuck with…or at least that’s
what we thought until we were returning from Tucson the other day in the
truck. I watched a car travel the length
of the service road we thought was impassable right up the campground
road. Hmmmm…how can that be?...what’s changed? This morning on our bicycle ride, I suggested
we take a ride over there to see what the situation is…if we couldn’t get
through we could turn around and ride our usual route. Well, whatdaya know…the road goes
through!! Yippee Skippee!! No more riding the bumpy frontage road. 👍 There are spots on the north frontage that
looked like sand had been pushed onto the road and then maybe swept off…perhaps
that’s the scenario we came across the first time and then mistakenly assumed
the road was torn up. Not gonna lie…I
won’t miss the bumpy frontage road.
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We rode our bikes to Gilbert today…that’s where the nearest Grain Train
type of store is located. Because I am
the way I am, I checked the map on Rapunzel before I programmed the address
into Biker Girl. I thought they had the
same route but turns out Rapunzel’s route cut out some city driving so I followed
her route by turning earlier than Biker Girl indicated. She got back at me for making her recalculate
the route by taking us into the outskirts of Casa Grande where the speed was 45
mph and there were lots of turns. Agh!! On the plus side, I quite accidentally
figured out how to change the volume of Biker Girl’s voice, so there is that. 😉
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Back at the camp before 4:30…plenty of time to start a load of wash before
going for a refreshing dip in the pool.
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Bicycle miles today: 6.75
Bike miles today: 117
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