Biking the canals

From The Crawfords in AZ Blog Photos

Today I turned south and took a nice long bike ride along some of the canals in Tempe, Chandler, Mesa, and Gilbert. One of the nice things about this area is that they cities here have built multi-use trails along the canal system that distributes water to the various cities. Mesa has done a good job of installing lights and rest areas along their multi-use path. However Gilbert is trying to catch up, they are currently installing more paved paths and they are also adding cross-walk signals to make crossing major road easier. Tempe is about to start a new project to improve their section.

These rides are always fun due to all of the sights you see. It is really night to see the back side of various neighborhoods, schools, parks, golf courses, horse corrals, junk yards, power plants, and industrial complexes. If we end up moving to Chandler or Gilbert, I think my daily biking commute will take me along the Western Canal so I can avoid having to deal with traffic. Once you get into Tempe, you have 165 miles of bike paths to choose from, so I am finding getting around to be easy.

I missed going to the NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament at ODU. My girls were ball kids for the first two games and then got to watch ODU beat Liberty.

Forgot to mention yesterday that as I was heading to the Ren Fest yesterday, one of the buttes was yellow. A couple of weeks ago a lot of the buttes were green because of how wet is has been this winter. Now all of the wildflowers are blooming, and this one was covered in yellow flowers.

Today’s picture is from the Octoillo Power Station and Star Power Research Center. It is along my daily commute to ASU. These panels rotate to always face the sun during the day.