Happy St. Patrick's Day

Saint Paddy's Day is never much of a holiday for us. Some people, as you know, go corned beef bonkers over Green Beer Day.  Locally, today marks the annual Return of The Turkey Vultures (AKA: Buzzards.)  There are a lot of Old Buzzards in this locality but the Turkey Vultures actually fly in the sky.  They are fun to watch and it's great to have them back.

Looks like the river peaked March 13th.

Spring Runoff is underway.  Spring Break, too.  Some Spring Breakers Run Off to far away places.  Snow, on the other hand, simply heads obediently downstream sometimes to the delight and merriment of river runners.  Yesterday was a very crowded day on The Verde River.  River Runners flocked in  much like Turkey Vultures.

We spent the evening at Jodi & Dexter's Place enjoying dinner and tall tales with Chip, Kathy, Brock, Kate and Jean.  Oh, how the river stories flowed as the evening progressed.  Whenever you get river runners together, river stories "do occur."  No matter what or where the river, each river creates its own plethora of river stories and they run off the tongue much like snowmelt runoff from higher elevations.

Speaking of The Verde River, it was 30 years ago today when I wrecked my right shoulder kayaking at a rapid known as White Flash.  The Doctor told me to hang up my paddle and forget boating so I traded off my kayak for an early version of what's now known as a Mountain Bicycle and began a new outdoor career attempting to build a business called "The Arizona Rough Riders."  One of these days, we're going to count the number of businesses we've tried to start over our lifetime.  It's been a bunch of them.

Back in the day we were actually a mountain bicycle racer, if you can imagine that.  Yes, we know it's hard to visualize a short, fat old guy being a bicycle racer but it's true.  We'll take more about that in the days ahead.

This week has been quite warm.  Thursday actually felt hot.  Thursday's high here reached 85 degrees but our "feels like" thermometer said it felt like 95.  Essentially, it felt like a typical mid-summer day in Idaho Falls.  Here's last week's temperature chart for Rimrock.

We're debating whether to do a road trip this coming week to Young via Payson.  Only two more weekends before Susun heads over to Grand Son Central in early April.  Our Arizona Season is fast coming to an end.