Monsoon season

In June the weather mostly just threatened. It was hot and sometimes muggy and occasionally the sky would turn from a cloudless blue to strange and ominous colors. These photos are from our yard in Tucson, on June 10. I don’t think it actually rained that day, but the weather was hinting at what would be coming.

June started out hot and desert-dry but it has become muggy-buggy. It feels tropical now, like south Texas or Florida.

These photos are of our neighborhood at sunset on July 1, a couple of hours after a downpour.

I was super happy with this next photo. I usually don’t snap pictures of strangers because it seems rude. But it’s just the back of her and I couldn’t resist – it was too beautiful.

A couple of more blocks down the road we came upon a motorist stuck in the sand.

Our local roads are designed to flood where they cross the arroyos. During a rain event the water doesn’t run very long. You’re not supposed to cross when they’re flooding, but of course people do. You can see how much it had flooded from where the mud ended up.

John and I didn’t go out for our walk until the rain stopped, which was probably an hour or two after the water was at its highest. They really are flash floods – starting suddenly and receding soon afterwards.

John ran out there to help the guy. I stood on a small footbridge to watch. I love how the stuck motorist just stands there doing nothing while John starts digging his car out for him, lol.

Then another car appears and successfully fords the water.

After the second guy cleared the water, he left his car in middle of the opposite lane while he headed back to help too.

After a little bit, a couple more vehicles arrive. Now the second guy’s car is in the way of the others wanting to get by. The new motorists wait quietly, patiently. When the guy finally realizes the issue, he runs to move his car out of the way. John, oblivious to the passing traffic, continues work with the stuck motorist. Here comes a UPS truck! I assumed the UPS driver would have no issues in that big truck, but he almost bogged down in the sand at the end.

They successfully get the stuck guy out and he’s on his way.

Meanwhile, another mini drama was playing out near where I was standing and watching traffic. A young boy had found a vinyl record in the debris washing down the arroyo. Obviously the record would be scratched and useless after its ride in the arroyo, but the youngest generation seems to be in awe of vinyl records. (Dad – don’t give away your record collection! You’d be surprised what it’s worth.)

The boy was very excited with his find and wanted to jump off the foot bridge into the water to wash off his new record. But I intervened, like the busy-body old lady that I am. The current can be strong and there’s all sorts of sharp, dangerous and disgusting things in the arroyos when they are flooding. It smelled of rot and sewage. The boy reluctantly agreed to wait and wash his new record after he got home.

Next, John and I walked down to a much larger arroyo a bit further from our house. There, the water had already receded, leaving surprisingly large piles of debris in its wake, like shopping carts and old couches and mattresses. The city does undertake some arroyo clearing in preparation for monsoon season, but it’s never enough.

By the time we got to the big arroyo, it was too dark to take good pictures. Plus, who wants pictures of mud-caked junk strewn across a damp arroyo? Instead, I will leave you with this neighborhood sunset picture.

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