Post by dangdawg on Nov 14, 2008 17:42:58 GMT -5
I hadn’t been on a ride for several days and I was starting to Jones, so I grabbed the camera so I could share my ride with you dawgs.
I have to say that I was a little disappointed by the lack of ride reports in the scoot dawg forum, so here is my first contribution to try to help out that cause.
Green valley is about 30 miles or so south of Tucson. Green Valley isn’t really all that green, however if you look at the Google satellite photo and back it off a ways it looks green then. Riding through Green Valley you would never know why they named it that in the first place. Green Valley has mainly been known for the open pit mines nearby and as a retirement community.
It was supposed to get up to 81 degrees here in Tucson today so I went outside at around 10:45 AM just before I left for my ride to check out the temperature. I decided it was warm enough that if I wore my jacket, I was going to be too hot. I overheat real easy. As my dad likes to point out to me I come from a long and proud line of heavy sweaters.
I left the house and after about a mile I decided that it was too cool not to wear my jacket so I turned around and went home to get it.
Okay now I’m off. I get down the street to the four way stop and there are a bunch of cages that get there all at the same time. And to my left at the stop sign is an old guy on an MP3. Hey cool I think, I haven’t seen one in real life yet. The old coot does a Hollywood stop and screws everybody’s timing off and several people have to slam on their brakes. Well alrighty then; the old guy on the MP3 scooter gets to go first.
Okay, now I’m really off. I go south to Ajo Way and then west to Mission Rd. where I turn south. After a couple of miles you get to the San Xavier Indian Reservation. There are signs telling you not to get off the highway. At that point civilization is starting to get a little thin, no pun intended.
After a few more miles there is a road off to the left that goes to the San Xavier Mission. It is only about a half a mile to the mission, but the washboard asphalt road is enough to unplug you spleen from its socket. Just before you get to the mission, there is a somewhat unusual grave yard. As you can see, all of the headstones are actually wooden crosses. I’m not sure why.
The mission itself is a beautiful structure, but as you can see they are doing some kind of maintenance and therefore the scaffolding. Some indigenous Americans are selling items such as fry bread and presumably jewelry next to the mission.
After the mission pictures, it’s the gut jarring half mile ride back to Mission Rd. and then left and on down to Green Valley.
I had only gone a few miles when I started to get too hot in my jacket so I decided to stop and take it off. I get the bungee net out of the trunk, but I notice one of the little plastic covers for one of the end hooks is missing. I take everything out of the trunk, but can’t find it. No big deal, I can live without it so I anchored my jacket to the rear rack and prepare to leave. As I mount the scoot and ready myself to cast off, I look down on the ground and there is the missing little white plastic hook end. I collect it and return it to its rightful place and I’m off.
It took all of about a minute before I was too cool again. That was a condition that would repeat itself for the rest of the ride. I was hitting pockets of warm and cool air, but I continued to go jacketless.
Mission road is nice and smooth in spots and really rough in other spots. You can go a mile or so and it is good and then a mile or so and it is bad. The speed limit is 50 or 55 depending where you are, but where the road is rough, I slow down to about 45 to 50.
Like I said, Green Valley is known for open pit mines. With open pit mines come great big tailings piles for miles and miles. It is really ugly and will take thousands of years to recover. Here are a couple of pictures of the tailings pile on the west side of the Twin Buttes mine. It is/was an open pit copper mine, but I don’t think it is active anymore.
When you get to Green Valley, there really isn’t much there. There are some houses and a few shopping centers with a few fast food places. If you blink you might miss it.
On the way back to Tucson via the Old Nogales Hwy and just north of Green Valley there are several miles of orchards. I’m not sure what kind of trees they are, but I think some of them might be pecans, but then again I might be wrong.
I continued to hit warm and cool pockets of air. That was especially true riding through the orchards. As I’m getting closer to home there is a guy on a Harley Davidson coming out of the parking lot of a convenience market that looked just like Billy Gibbons, I swear. He had really long gray hair and a really long gray beard and he gave me a really pronounced head nod as I rode by. I’m sure he could tell I was on a scooter. I love it when things like that happen and it made up for that jerk on the MP3 earlier.
It was 1:00 PM when I got home. It was a good ride.
I have to say that I was a little disappointed by the lack of ride reports in the scoot dawg forum, so here is my first contribution to try to help out that cause.
Green valley is about 30 miles or so south of Tucson. Green Valley isn’t really all that green, however if you look at the Google satellite photo and back it off a ways it looks green then. Riding through Green Valley you would never know why they named it that in the first place. Green Valley has mainly been known for the open pit mines nearby and as a retirement community.
It was supposed to get up to 81 degrees here in Tucson today so I went outside at around 10:45 AM just before I left for my ride to check out the temperature. I decided it was warm enough that if I wore my jacket, I was going to be too hot. I overheat real easy. As my dad likes to point out to me I come from a long and proud line of heavy sweaters.
I left the house and after about a mile I decided that it was too cool not to wear my jacket so I turned around and went home to get it.
Okay now I’m off. I get down the street to the four way stop and there are a bunch of cages that get there all at the same time. And to my left at the stop sign is an old guy on an MP3. Hey cool I think, I haven’t seen one in real life yet. The old coot does a Hollywood stop and screws everybody’s timing off and several people have to slam on their brakes. Well alrighty then; the old guy on the MP3 scooter gets to go first.
Okay, now I’m really off. I go south to Ajo Way and then west to Mission Rd. where I turn south. After a couple of miles you get to the San Xavier Indian Reservation. There are signs telling you not to get off the highway. At that point civilization is starting to get a little thin, no pun intended.
After a few more miles there is a road off to the left that goes to the San Xavier Mission. It is only about a half a mile to the mission, but the washboard asphalt road is enough to unplug you spleen from its socket. Just before you get to the mission, there is a somewhat unusual grave yard. As you can see, all of the headstones are actually wooden crosses. I’m not sure why.
The mission itself is a beautiful structure, but as you can see they are doing some kind of maintenance and therefore the scaffolding. Some indigenous Americans are selling items such as fry bread and presumably jewelry next to the mission.
After the mission pictures, it’s the gut jarring half mile ride back to Mission Rd. and then left and on down to Green Valley.
I had only gone a few miles when I started to get too hot in my jacket so I decided to stop and take it off. I get the bungee net out of the trunk, but I notice one of the little plastic covers for one of the end hooks is missing. I take everything out of the trunk, but can’t find it. No big deal, I can live without it so I anchored my jacket to the rear rack and prepare to leave. As I mount the scoot and ready myself to cast off, I look down on the ground and there is the missing little white plastic hook end. I collect it and return it to its rightful place and I’m off.
It took all of about a minute before I was too cool again. That was a condition that would repeat itself for the rest of the ride. I was hitting pockets of warm and cool air, but I continued to go jacketless.
Mission road is nice and smooth in spots and really rough in other spots. You can go a mile or so and it is good and then a mile or so and it is bad. The speed limit is 50 or 55 depending where you are, but where the road is rough, I slow down to about 45 to 50.
Like I said, Green Valley is known for open pit mines. With open pit mines come great big tailings piles for miles and miles. It is really ugly and will take thousands of years to recover. Here are a couple of pictures of the tailings pile on the west side of the Twin Buttes mine. It is/was an open pit copper mine, but I don’t think it is active anymore.
When you get to Green Valley, there really isn’t much there. There are some houses and a few shopping centers with a few fast food places. If you blink you might miss it.
On the way back to Tucson via the Old Nogales Hwy and just north of Green Valley there are several miles of orchards. I’m not sure what kind of trees they are, but I think some of them might be pecans, but then again I might be wrong.
I continued to hit warm and cool pockets of air. That was especially true riding through the orchards. As I’m getting closer to home there is a guy on a Harley Davidson coming out of the parking lot of a convenience market that looked just like Billy Gibbons, I swear. He had really long gray hair and a really long gray beard and he gave me a really pronounced head nod as I rode by. I’m sure he could tell I was on a scooter. I love it when things like that happen and it made up for that jerk on the MP3 earlier.
It was 1:00 PM when I got home. It was a good ride.
