MLK weekend was supposed to be slow. Supposed to be a ‘down’ weekend. Supposed to be ‘lazy’ and not have anything specific scheduled. That last piece is the only bit that held. Based on the post title, you’ve probably figured out that we were fairly well occupied running around doing random stuff. For starters, there’s been a big AZ Cardinal flying around the front yard, who always seems to bugger off when I manage to get the camera out. Well I finally got him:
He even stayed in the tree for me to get some shots from the other side:
Not a bad way to kick off the weekend. On Saturday we rode the bike up to Tucson for the single ‘hard time’ event we had scheduled, a visit to Simply Dinners, which Kelly had gotten a gift card for at Christmas. On the way, we picked up the extra headset leads at the bike shop so we could talk to each other while riding… unbelievably huge improvement. No more having to divine whether frantic shoulder tapping means “Look at that cool old car” or “It might be a really good time to find a bathroom…”. But I digress… Simply Dinners is laid out like a couple of sequential industrial kitchen counters, with a pair of recipes listed at each. Open the counter cover and all the ingredients are already there, with an appropriate size scoop in each. Simply read the directions and put the various ingredients in baggies or small containers, put it all in a big ziploc, and affix the ‘how to cook it’ sticker to that bag. Toss it in the freezer and move on to the next recipe. We did six meals for 2 in under 1/2 hour, and then put those (along with their preprepared sides) in the side-case on the bike (the one away from the exhaust), and rode home. For people without the time or full kitchen setup for preparing individual meals to stick in the freezer, this place is brilliant.
Note: Since I had touched the camera (not part of the ‘clean’ environment), I had to go back and wash my hands before returning to help with more meal prep. Awesome setup there, definitely a must for Tucson peeps.
Sunday managed to be a reasonably lazy day, but we needed to get out on Monday… so we decided to finally check out the Bisbee Copper Queen Mine, by way of a bike ride:
The rear case does work significantly better since I added the aftermarket rack underneath, as there’s much less flex in the rack, and thereby less flex in the lower portion of the box, and thereby less kidney punching involved when I grab a handful of throttle to execute passes out on the road. Box doesn’t flex, so passenger doesn’t get mad… the rack was definitely worth the investment. Back to the mine tour… The Copper Queen apparently has 7 levels, each 100′ or so apart vertically from the top of the mountain, with tunnels spidering out following the copper veins. How does one get copper out of a mountain? Dynamite!
Ok, so it was dynamite wrapper slid over a section of PVC pipe, but you get the picture. There were a couple of larger ‘caverns’ off the main track into the mountain, and although it wasn’t quite as interesting as the Tombstone tour, it was still very worth the $13 or so that the tour cost. I had forgotten to charge the camera, so I had to power it up, take a shot, then power it off quickly so the circuitry wouldn’t figure out that there wasn’t much battery left and auto-shutdown the camera with the lens extended… Point-and-pray indeed!
At the second stop on the railway into the mountain, the side cut had a rail line running along one side, and this unique ‘rail bike’ still there, built by someone during the operation of the mine so that the runners and foremen could get back and forth along the underground tracks more quickly and easily:
It wouldn’t have been a proper stop in Bisbee without a hippie sighting… this was just a small gathering, not quite to the ‘slam-bam jamboree’ level I’ve seen previously:
All of our running around annoyed the dogs, since they got cooped up in the house a lot more than they would have liked. It’s okay, because they got treats when we got home, and have both been working on waiting patiently when given treats:
Not bad for a ‘lazy’ weekend…
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