Awakened by a phone call…it was time to get up anyway. Yesterday, we talked about walking the other way around the petroglyph mountains, but we let the morning slip away. So, we talked about doing it today…and doing it before it got beastly hot out. Even if the temperature doesn’t get up in the hot range, walking out in the full sun will make a person sweat in places that cause discomfort. Not fun.
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It only stands to reason that if a person wants to see desert critters,
then he/she should walk out in the desert.
The best time to see critters moving about would be very early morning
or early evening when the heat isn’t so intense. However, I’m not a fan of mingling
with the natural world in the dark. So, walking in the desert after the sun is
up and while it’s still cool works for us, knowing that the critters we want to
see wouldn’t be out and about, like probably ever. Javelinas, rattlesnakes, coyotes, roadrunners,
scorpions…we’ve seen all of them but a desert tortoise and a gila monster still
haven’t been marked off the list. And they’ll probably never get checked off
unless we get incredibly lucky. They are shy, rarely seen desert dwellers. We did, however, find some more petroglyphs
on rocks on the southern end of the mountain.
The bulk of the drawings are on the northern end, right in the parking
area.
Kim mapped our walk with his OnX app. It took us 1 hour, 13 ½ minutes to
walk 1.3 miles around the mountain at a speed of 1.1 mph. I was somewhat
disappointed with the distance we covered because it sure felt like it was farther
than that.
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Tammy and I took a ride this
afternoon out to the Tohono O’odham Reservation. Just before the border
checkpoint, we turned right onto IR 42 which eventually took us to I-8. Rode that for about 10 miles, then jumped off
at Thornton Rd, the first exit for Casa Grande.
I’ve ridden that route several times but always got off at Trekell Rd,
which is the second exit for Casa Grande. I really didn’t know where I was
going but I knew if we just kept heading to the right, we’d eventually run into
Jimmie Kerr Hwy, which is exactly what happened. Yay!
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On Thornton Rd. we passed by a huge building bearing the name Lucid. When we stopped in traffic, Tammy asked me if
I knew what Lucid was all about; I told her, “No, but I know how to find out.” So,
I turned to Google when I got back, and this is what I learned about Lucid:
The Lucid building
in Casa Grande is an EV manufacturing facility of Lucid Motors. The building is
located on 500 acres of former farmland.
The building is 4 million square feet, and
Lucid's Casa Grande plant employs 2,500 people, which ranks it as the largest
employer in Pinal County. The Lucid Group, Inc., the electric vehicle manufacturer, is
majority-owned by the Public Investment Fund (PIF), the sovereign wealth fund
of Saudi Arabia, holding approximately 60% of its shares.
Lucid produces
luxury EV cars and has encountered some challenges, which is affecting the
company financially. Basically, Lucid cars are pricey, the EV market isn’t
growing as quickly as initially anticipated, and Lucid is struggling with brand
recognition and awareness compared to the more established competition.
If a person is interested in owning a Lucid
EV luxury car, this is what they can expect to pay: The 2025 Lucid Air starts at $71,400. That's
for the Pure trim with a 420-mile range. The lineup tops out at $250,500 for
the ultra-powerful Sapphire.
In a nutshell: The Saudis own the majority of Lucid, which
produces luxury electric SUVs. The manufacturing facility in Casa Grande is
huge, employs lots of people and the cost for any Lucid EV is way above my pay
grade.
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We got stopped by Tribal police today, but
the reason is still unclear in my mind. The officer was very polite and asked
if we saw a white car parked along the road when we were near the highway. I
explained that we had been on IR 15 and were heading toward the highway now, but
no, we hadn’t seen any white car parked anywhere. He said he was sorry, that
the report said there were two bikers who reported it and he thought we were
the two bikers. Our conversation took
place while my bike was running so I think that’s the gist of what he
said. Anyway, it was a first for me…and
I daresay, a first for Tammy too, since it was the first time she’d been on reservation land.
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I listen to audiobooks at home because I can work while listening. This year, I’m rediscovering the joy of reading a book. It started with joining a book club. I wanted to read the book, as opposed to listening to it, so I could look back over it to refresh my memory when discussing it. Audio books certainly have their place, but nothing beats finding a comfy spot and turning pages.
I brought three books with me, two by an author I’ve read before, and
the other book was by a totally unfamiliar author. Took a chance on that book
that didn’t pay off…I didn’t care for it, but the other two I really enjoyed. This
is the order that I read them: good book, not so good book, good book. After I
finished reading the third book, I felt at loose ends…like I was just kicked
out of a family I really enjoyed being around and didn’t know where to go or
what to do with myself. I was thinking
that I was having ‘end of book withdrawal’ and looked it up online. Turns out I didn’t make that up…it’s a real
thing. Someone also called it ‘post-book depression’. While neither of these
phrases are meant to make light of serious mental health conditions, they are
very apt descriptions for how I was feeling. But today I got two more books so
I can get back at it.
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Kim is trying to figure out an issue he’s seeing in his images. When he pointed it out to me, I thought it
was just part of the nebula. This is unfamiliar stuff to most people, so the
untrained person wouldn’t know that there’s a darker area that shouldn’t be there.
But he knows it’s there so it’s unacceptable. He’s chosen the path of least
resistance in troubleshooting it; he just turned his camera sideways. If the imperfection
has changed location, it’s originating from the camera. If it stays in the same location, then it’s
in the scope itself. Either way, he’s got to figure out how to eliminate it.
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