Summer Redux
It's been a challenging three months since my last entry. The monsoon teased briefly in the third week of July, not providing much rain here on the Eastside, but quenching the Bighorn Fire. The story has been more of the unrelenting heat—breaking all kinds of records, including the two hottest months in the recorded weather history of Tucson—without the typical break provided by the big storms, downpours, or even (at the very least) any overcast days. Just brutal, unending heat. On the plus side, the road to Mt Lemmon opened, and some of the trails a few weeks later. So I was able to get up to Summerhaven a few times to run on the steep roads, then later to Mt Bigelow (which is completely unscathed). There was a little bit of weather around Labor Day, so I rode around The Loop trying to average 18mph, and getting pretty close—missed a few turns and had to backtrack on one short section. Moving time was 3hrs 28min, elapsed time was right around 3hr45min (I got stuck behind an immen...