Wherever we go, we seem to bring the heat. Heat records have fallen on many of our trips including Vermont in 2010, Wisconsin in 2012, and most recently the heat dome of Ohio in June of 2025. This year I am proud to announce that we brought on the earliest (ever) triple digit temps in Tucson. The city is not thanking us.

Yes, it was hot for our last week in Tucson. “They” say that the normal temps for March are in the mid-seventies to low-eighties. Well, obviously we just can’t trust “them”! The end result for us was earlier ride starts (and lots of water) so we were finished with our rides well in advance of the hottest time of the day.

We took a ride to Catalina State Park because we knew that the Coast 2 Coast bike ride was camping there for the night. We revisited the site of famous, or infamous Tent 6, (for our new readers, yes, we rode a tandem Coast to Coast in 2017) and you can read all about it on a special part of this blog.

The next day we beat the heat and climb the “A” mountain. Those crazy University of Arizona students constructed the A up on Sentinel Peak from rocks and mortar over a hundred years ago, and now they spend their time repainting it. Mondays are the best because the road is closed to cars – making our ride up a bit easier.

Special visitors from Phoenix take a detour for a few days and come spend a few days with us in Tucson before they head back to the frozen tundra of the northeast.

A highlight of the visit is the B-17 exhibit. My dad was a tail gunner in these flying fortresses in WWII. He flew 26 bombing missions over Germany as part of the 8th Army Air Force Box 94th Bomb Group in Bury St. Edmunds, England.

Our four weeks in Tucson wrapped up and while on our way back to SoCal we had a lunch visit with Stacie. It was way too hot for any sight seeing! We ate, and headed into the desert.

It’s 40 degrees cooler in California, where we had time for a few of our favorite rides before heading home to springtime pollen season in Atlanta.

Departing after five weeks away and about 700 miles on our tandem, we had no TSA delays at the John Wayne Airport and enjoyed an easy flight home. We’ll be back in California soon as part of a very busy spring and summer travel schedule. Stay tuned for more fun on the tandem.

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