Saturday utility: trail run, library–REI–library

Early morning today I rode my bar bike to the nearby Phoenix Mountain Preserve trailhead at Peoria and 7th Ave to practice trail running in preparation of my upcoming sub-1hr challenge with faithful reader Bobby and the Presidents.

Then, after returning home and waiting a few hours for the temperature to rise to about 100°F, I set out on my touring bike to do the rest of the day's errands. First I returned a couple DVDs to the local library branch, Cholla. Then I biked to REI to return a pair of shoes. Yes, this is the second pair of shoes I've returned this month.

My last errand was to pick up a book I had reserved at the Desert Broom library branch, which is on Cave Creek Rd north of Dynamite. It turns out there's a bike path that runs from Sweetwater and the 51, which is one mile west of the REI in Paradise Valley, to Cave Creek just north of Pinnacle Peak, which is a few miles south of the Desert Broom library branch. I hadn't ever taken this path the whole way, so this last errand entailed me doing some exploring.

On the way back I stopped to eat a pair of burritos and tried to reconcile myself to the fact that Phoenix still has three months to go of increasing temperatures, statistically.

Today was especially clear. Given a good enough vantage point, you could see all the mountains surrounding the valley. Pictured here: Piestewa Peak, as seen from the AC–DC path.

The Desert Broom library branch is a handsome, though small, facility. Like all other Phoenix library branches, excluding the central branch, Desert Broom is named after a native desert plant.

Unlike other library branches, Desert Broom is part of a rattlesnake crossing.

90km for the day, 4 tasks completed.