Morning thoughts:
Twelve years ago today Jeff died and there hasn’t been a day in between then and now that he hasn’t wandered through my thoughts. That’s 4,383 days of remembering. 😊
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Today’s 40 Days of Lent challenge: Give up social media for the day. The only social media I do is Facebook and
I’m not on that very often these days, usually just to post pictures and do
this blog thing. So this shouldn’t be a problem; I’ll just post everything tomorrow. Mom
will probably send me a text first thing asking if I forgot to send her the
blog again but I’ll just explain about needing to stay off FB for the day. No
problem.
Sometime
later I realized that FB doesn’t have anything to do with posting the blog…after
it’s typed, I publish it to the blog platform and from there I share it to FB and
also share it with my mom via text. It’s
all done through the blog program; there’s absolutely no need to go on Facebook. So I won’t be breaking the challenge and I
can still send the blog to my mom…unless I forget, that is. 😉 By the way….Hi, Mom!!
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Evening
thoughts on the day:
The
hikes we’ve been doing have been enjoyable but the pace is always more leisurely
than deliberate. Hard to keep a steady
pace when going up a rocky trail or walking through loose sand so today we
decided to take a brisk walk down Picacho Highway instead of a hike. Our goal was to walk to Nutt Rd. and back in
under an hour. Kim set the pace again
and I came up with an 8 count rhythm in my head to match his pace …a metronome
of sorts.
Turns
out that going there was the fast easy leg because the wind was behind us. When we turned to head back we were facing
what I would call a headwind…the kind that you have to lean into slightly as it
pushes against you. Tried to maintain the same pace but I could tell that my
metronome had slowed ever so slightly.
But I pushed onward striving to match Kim’s pace.
To
make it official Kim set the OnX app to track our distance and time. He stopped it at the 5K mark; we met our goal
of under an hour at 52:50, which also beats our Cotton Days 5K time of 56:45.
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For
about a week there’s been a big hauling type trailer in the park with the name
Dirt Cheap Racing emblazoned across the front and back. I didn’t think much of it but one day Kim saw
a man getting ready to tinker on a car so he went over to talk to him. The man’s name was Collin King and his whole
set up was about Quarter Midget racing. Collin makes sure the miniature cars are in
good running condition so his 8 year old son can race them. The boy races under
the name of Bishop Brothers. There’s a
race coming up in Tucson and they made the trip from Everett, Washington so Dad
could tweak everything to make sure that Bishop and the cars were both running
good on the track.
Kim talked
a bit and picked up the story: Collin owns a business, Dirt Cheap Sewer,
in the Seattle area of Washington and while he’s the mechanic and Bishop is the
driver, traveling for the races is a family thing because Mom and the 2 ½ year
old Little Brother come along…the little brother will probably be racing as
soon as he’s old enough.
Collin gave Kim a tour of the racing trailer: cars, tools, engines, etc.
lining the walls, along with computerized equipment for checking tire balance,
etc. When Kim mentioned the engines,
Collin admitted that some of them were just there for the intimidation factor
when other dads wanted to check out the trailer. He also said the Bishop was a national
champion of something at the age of 6.
When
we dropped off the cookies last night, Mom said that they were heading out
tomorrow (today) but leaving the racing trailer and motorhome here since they’d
returning for the race in April. (Maybe the price of fuel is a factor in that.)
She also said that they came here for
the week just so Bishop could try the track since he’s never run on it before
and with a laugh added, “We’re pretty competitive.” I asked if she homeschools Bishop…no, he
attends a private school that is very good about sending her the work he needs to
complete when absent from school. Sounds
like Bishop has a good gig going.
Today they brought over two smoked salmon filets before leaving. I took it into Kim and he immediately opened it and ate a bite, said it was very good and before I knew it the entire filet was gone. I wonder how long the other filet will last.
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I’d never heard of Quarter Midget Racing before so I went online to see what I could find. Quartermidgets.com was a wealth of information. Quarter Midget racing appears to be fun, time intensive and costly…and I think we have a grandson who would enjoy the thrill of this kind of racing.
The cars are essentially ¼-scale Midget race cars. Unlike Go-Karts,
Quarter Midgets feature full four wheel independent suspension and full roll
cages. Seat belts and shoulder harnesses are mandatory. Power comes from a
120-150cc engine, which specifications are closely set by the national
governing board and enforced at each local club race by officials. The tracks
are 1/20 mile banked ovals comprised of dirt, concrete, and asphalt surfaces.
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I rode the bike over to Oro Valley to pick up our race packets for the Tucson Shamrock Half-Marathon/10K/5K Run/Walk tomorrow. We, of course, will be doing the 5K walk. This race is chip timed unlike the Cotton Days race which depended on Rhonda reading the times from her cell phone and her assistant writing them down. I’m not making fun of the Cotton Days race at all…I enjoyed everything about that small town experience. The Shamrock is going to be much bigger and that seems a little intimidating right now. I’m sure I’ll get past that.
Rapunzel
says the race location is 34 miles away, about a 31 minute drive if using I-10. Race
time for the 5K is 8 a.m. so we’ll be getting up early again, probably 6 or
6:15. Not looking forward to that part at
all…Ugh!
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While I was out riding today, Kim changed out his telescopes…put the
bigger one on because he wants to image galaxies. Even though it’s forecasted to be clear
tonight the moon is getting fuller so imaging will be getting trickier because
of the extra moonlight.
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| Picture taken at dusk |
One
of the videos from yesterday shows a smaller bird flying around the cactus
harassing the owl. She doesn’t look too
bothered by it.
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Bike miles today: 114
Total miles: 558
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