A network of rivers runs through Tucson. There is never any water in any of them. So they save a lot of money on bridges, just building the roads down through the little valleys they call "washes." If there ever is water in a wash, you're not supposed to drive in it. But people do, making really good television while emergency crews bail them out. So they passed a "Stupid Motorist Law" to deal with it. It's a lot cheaper than building bridges.
Stupid Motorists are making numerous television appearances today. Actual water even flowed in the Rillito River, of all things. A resident says she can't remember that happening for at least a decade.
We certainly hope that they are collecting this windfall in big reservoirs somewhere, so that it can be properly dispensed over the golf courses during the seven lean years, much as Joseph instructed the Pharaoh to do. Well, sort of. We really would like to avoid the Southwest going ahead with its plans to divert water from the Great Lakes.Today, despite warnings of danger and perdition, Stan and Birdie took their daily run/walk, bundled with some of the warm stuff they brought along from Minnesota. Sure enough. There was weather outside. It blew. It rained. And then it hailed. Yes, it hailed the tiniest little baby hail you've ever seen. It made Birdie sort of ecstatic and squirrely, not knowing what to do. She's been out in real weather before and she wasn't sure what this was supposed to be and how to act.
She's not the only one. Arizonians are flocking to the rivers, just to watch water flow by. "It's so peaceful," they coo.
Sadly, the entertainment ends Sunday. The climate will stop making history and we'll get back to 60 and sunny, just in time for our friend Franny to step off the airplane to ask what all the fuss is about.
She's lived in Minnesota all her life. How do we explain that it is about water in the rivers?
