I had to get up extra early, this morning, to put out the group lunch and snack food for the day.  We go through about 3 loaves of bread, a package of cold cuts and another of cheese slices, a jar each of peanut butter and jelly, 11 bananas, a few pounds of other fruit, 3 packages of cookies, 1 package of crackers, possibly some nuts or trail mix, and a package of zip lock baggies.  

So I put the food out on a counter, and within 10 minutes everyone had made their sandwiches and bagged up their snacks for the day.  All that was left to do was to wash 4 plastic knives from the shared cooking supplies, and I was off to our next stop–McDonalds for breakfast.  

We don’t usually eat out for breakfast, but for some reason, Ken decided that was going to be the plan for the day.  The whole group took over half of the restaurant, and we gave the locals something to talk about.

So Ed, Tom R and I started our ride from the McDonalds parking lot, as the adjacent road is part of The Trail of the Mountain Spirits Scenic Byway, our route for the day.  

After 6.5 miles of climbing, just before we made it to Pinos Altos, we reached the first of the day’s two crossings of the Continental Divide.  After posing for photos, we were about to hop back on our bikes, when Tom C, Erwin and Chris pulled up.  More photos ensued, then we all rode off together. 

Sticking together for several hours, we were the biggest group riding together for the longest time since the tour began in San Diego.  We had a great time racing up and down hills, stopping for snacks and poking fun at each other.  

It wasn’t till we reached our one and only shot at ice cream and cold beverages that we started to split up and ride in smaller groups.  

Eventually, all the guys sped up and left me in the dust, which was fine.  I like to ride my own ride, and keeping up with them wipes me out.  

About two miles from the Mountain Spirit RV park, our destination for the night, I pulled off at the Mimbres Heritage Historical Site and spend a little over an hour checking out the exhibits and learning about the Mimbres Indian ruins and pottery found on the site in the early 1900s.  

Cane Cholla at the Mimbres Heritage Historical Site
The Mimbranos (aka Mimbres Indians) lived on the site from 1000-1150 and had a unique pottery style with black on white images that tell a pretty complete story of their culture.  I had never heard of them before, but because of their pottery, they are supposedly one of the most popular prehistoric Indian tribes.  See?  I learned something new today.  

As I rode alone, the last few miles to the RV park, one of my biggest fears became a reality.  A little white pickup truck with two men in it coming up the road in the oncoming land slowed down, and pulled over in a suspicious manner.  I was thinking I could potentially get rolled by the guys, have my bike loaded in the back, and who knows what would happen to me, so I looked straight ahead and kept riding.  

As I watched the truck in my rear view mirror, it made a U-turn and slowly pulled up behind me.  Nervous, now, I kept riding as the truck slowly pulled up beside me.  Holy cow!  What was going to happen?  I looked off to the right and peddled harder.  Then I heard a voice, “Are you all right?”  It was Tom C from our group and the man who manages the RV park.  Whew!  

Relieved, I hollered back that I had been at the historical site, which they should have been able to guess.  He said, “That’s what we thought,” and they drove off.  So I had the rest of my ride to think about all the things I do alone in life as a single female with no one worrying about me or even knowing what I am doing or where I am.  How do I survive without people to check up on me?  But almost all of these guys are married or widowers, who probably wouldn’t be comfortable if their wife was alone in unfamiliar territory.  I wish I had other options, but I don’t.  I’m stuck in my life.  

The Ride

Take a moment to look at the map that shows our two possible routes for the day.  

We could have done the route that goes straight east from Silver City to San Lorenzo (3 members of the group did), but instead, we took the scenic route that goes north out of Silver City, then turns southeast before Lake Roberts to get to San Lorenzo.  Our route was twice as long with substantially more climbing, including two crossings of the Continental Divide.  And why did we do it?  (1) Because we heard that it has some of the best scenery of the entire ride across the US, and (2) because we are hard core.

The scenery was great!  We climbed from pinion and alligator juniper trees to tall pines, then back down again to follow the tree-lined Mimbres River as it passes through ranches and farmland.  We passed into and out of the Gila National Forest numerous times.  

There were scenic vistas on all sides of us at times and hoodoos like you see in Bryce Canyon.  

From start to finish,all of us who took our route agreed that it was totally worth the extra effort.  

New Mexico sunset after we finished dinner
Tomorrow promises to be another challenging day as we climb the tallest peak of the entire trip.  

Boy am I thankful that this day off was less eventful than my last day off.  I slept in until 8 AM, then rode my bike over to be the first customer of the day at Gila Hike & Bike, the local bike shop recommended by several people.  Martyn and Chris did not disappoint and were able to fit an overhaul of my bike into their schedule.

I walked back to our motel to learn that the car that had been rented for a day trip to the Gila Cliff Dwellings, 44 miles from here, was too small to accommodate the 6 of us who wanted to see them.  I volunteered to stay back, as I live close enough to Silver City that I could feasibly make my way back here, someday, which is less likely for the guys from Washington, Virginia and Amsterdam.

Instead, I went to breakfast with a couple of the other riders, then explored the historic downtown area of Silver City, which has a population of about 9900 and is home to Western New Mexico University.  

For such a small town, it has a thriving arts district and impressive murals and public art installations.  I walked through most of the galleries, gift shops and antique stores and came up with about 4 favorites.

Among them was an art co-op run by a handicapped fellow who labels his work “assemblage” art.  He had some pretty wild stuff going on in his shop–most of which my granddaughters would not approve. 

There were, of course, a few historic sights, including a cabin recreated for the set of “The Missing,” a 2006 Ron Howard movie.  

He donated the cabin to Silver City, and it sits on the homesite where Billy the Kid lived with his parents from 1873 – 1875.  Now that’s historic, don’t you think?

Later on, I emptied my panniers so Ken and I could make a grocery run to Wal-Mart.  Both of my panniers were topped off with groceries on the way back to our motel when we ran into 3 of the guys walking to a steak house for dinner.  We turned around and followed them.  Had a nice dinner, then headed back to the motel to get ready for tomorrow.

Tomorrow is another day of climbing that crosses the Continental Divide two more times.  The weather forecast calls for rain, at least through the morning.  We are all nervous about what awaits us up the road.

Last night, when I left our cabin for my 3 AM bathroom break, there was gusty wind howling outside.  Then when I finally woke up and ventured out into the daylight, the sky was ominous.  

We had been tracking the weather for a few days, and today, the weather prediction was 90% chance of rain.  The topic during breakfast was what everyone’s strategy was going to be for the wind and the rain.  We had been planning to camp out in an RV park tonight, in Silver City, but now we were discussing changing our plans to get Motel 6 rooms instead. Ken made a phone call, and that plan was set.

It took me longer than the others to get out of the KOA, and most of them like to drink coffee before venturing out, so they went head to McDonalds, and I met up with them just as they were getting ready to leave.  

As soon as we hit the road, we were riding into a serious headwind that slowed us down to just over 4 miles per hour.  Wearing a long sleeved thermal layer under my jersey and a Marmot rain shell I bought for hiking the Appalachian Trail, my arms started heating up.  A few of us stopped to remove layers (I removed the rain jacket), then we moved on down the road.  

The dark rain clouds loomed over us the entire day, and there was no relief from the wind that had now become a cross wind.  It was slow going, and at times, I felt like I was going to be blown over.   All the guys, but Ken, pulled ahead and left me in the dust, which was fine.  I would have burned myself out trying to keep up with them.  So for the rest of the day, it was me and Ken.  

We rode through more New Mexico desert, through the Gila National Forest, and climbing toward the Continental Divide, ran into high desert plants we hadn’t yet seen.   When we finally reached the Continental Divide, we learned that the others had left only 15 minutes before ou arrival.   

After a short break to down a sandwich and talk to a couple of our guys who were lunching at the top of the Divide, we started riding again.  It immediately started to sprinkle, so we stopped to put our rain gear on.  As soon as we started riding again, the sprinkling stopped.  What the heck!  We rode for another few minutes, and started seeing oncoming traffic with windshield wipers in motion.  The rain was on, and after one more stop to fine tune our rain protection, we settled in for a wet ride into Silver City.  

There were several more climbs after the Continental Divide, a couple of small towns that were so small they didn’t have any services, a couple of historical markers, and a few very long descents that chilled us to the bone.  

Once at the motel, I brought my bike and gear into my room to clean them and hang wet items out to dry.   Me, my bike and everything that was attached to it were covered in road grit.  Thankfully, everything inside the panniers was clean and dry (go Ortlieb!).  I showered, then headed out to walk to my eye doctor appointment.

The doc couldn’t come up with a diagnosis.  She said that both my eyeballs and eyelids are swollen and suggested I try Systane Ultra eye drops.  She offered to set up an appointment tomorrow with a dermatologist, but I’m thinking that as long as my eyes are okay, I can weather out the puffy eyes. 

We have a day off the bikes tomorrow, so I am looking forward to sleeping in and taking it easy for a day.  

News Flash:  We have now passed through two states, having entered New Mexico this morning.  We are also 1/4 way through our ride across the country. Tomorrow we cross the Continental Divide for the first of three times our route crosses it.   

Most of us didn’t sleep very well last night.  There was non stop semi truck traffic in Highway 70, the road in front of our city park campsite, and on top of that, there was non-stop coyote-like barking and howling all night long, topped off with some nearby roosters who  thought the time to wake us up was 2 AM. 

I woke up with swollen eyelids that  reduced my field of vision significantly. 

I had the same problem the 2-3 days before we arrived in Phoenix, and it went away after spending one night on my couch in Phoenix.  I don’t have access to my couch, now, so I have scheduled an appointment with an eye doctor in Silver City, two days from now, to get them checked out.  They had better not be sun burned.  I have been wearing ESS Ice Nano sunglasses, the same glasses worn by Army soldiers in the Middle East. 

We ended up eating breakfast at Hilda’s Restaurant–the same place we ate lunch and dinner yesterday. The service was really slow, as in I think I could have cooked the pancakes, eggs and French toast, we ordered, faster than they did.  We had a short riding day ahead of us, so the time spent waiting didn’t bother any of us. 

Once we were through with our meal, we peeled out of Duncan, thinking it was going to be a cake riding day.  Unfortunately, there was a headwind most of the day, so even level ground felt like we were riding uphill.  We crossed over into New Mexico (NM) about 7 miles into our ride. 

The terrain for the day was similar to yesterday’s terrain.  We started out with the fertile farmland around Duncan that turned into lush desert, followed by less lush desert, then almost scorched earth.  

I spent the day riding with Tom R, a widower of 5 years who lives in the Virginia/Maryland area.  We yacked it up the whole day, talking about our families, the challenges of being single in today’s world, and politics.  One frustration we both shre is the difficulty of finding people to do things with, like travel, hike, go on rides like the one we are on right now, etc.  We didn’t solve any world problems, but it was nice to know that I am not alone in my life’s frustrations.  

Before we knew it, we were in Lordsburg.  The weather forecast had been predicting rain for tonight, ans we were dreading being rained on during the night and potentially having to tear down our campsite in the rain tomorrow.  Once at the Lordsburg KOA, we discovered that we could rent 3 cabins for only $15 more than the cost of our tent campsite, so we are sleeping indoors on bunks tonight.  And it turns out that the weather predictions were wrong. Now the rain is expected in Silver City.  Luck has been in our side, thus far, so I will be delighted if that weather prediction is wrong too. 

Last night was “interesting.”  We stayed in an RV park where even the manager didn’t think it was safe for us to leave our bikes outside, so we slept indoors on the floor of the community center with our bikes beside us.  And the place wasn’t very roomy for so many grown snorers and early risers and late risers, etc., but we survived.  So today, we were headed to Duncan, Arizona, and because there isn’t a grocery or convenience store in Duncan or actually anywhere between Safford and Lordsburg, New Mexico, before we left Safford, we had to make a run to the grocery store with the whole group to pick up and parcel out our breakfast and lunch food for the next day (our plan was to eat dinner in a restaurant). 

We haven’t ridden together as a group since our check ride in San Diego, so it was fun while it lasted.  And how long did it last?  For less than a minute, once we pulled out of the grocery store parking lot.

Being the Private Benjamin that I am, I parted from the group first, because I forgot to pull my 4 Gatorade bottles out of the freezer before we left the RV Park.  Duh!  The place was completely locked up, and the manager was nowhere in sight, so I started to look for windows I could break into.  I felt a little like a criminal, but I needed those bottles.  While I fiddled around with a window screen, someone started opening one of the doors from the inside.  Eureka!  The cleaning lady was inside cleaning and heard me outside.  I was happy to see her, and she was happy to see me.  I got my bottles and she got all the food and beer our group left behind.

As we rode out of Safford, we passed some of Gila Valley’s fertile fields– the ones I mentioned yesterday, but forgot to get a photo of.  There are miles and miles of mostly cotton fields with some alfalfa.

With my water bottle delay, I was being swept by Ken, our fearless leader, so I was pretty motivated to catch up with the other riders.  Finally, we caught up with Ed, then Tom C., then Neal.  From then on, there were other riders to banter and take breaks with along the way.

Today’s ride was much more hilly than the maps indicated, as we discussed it at last night’s map meeting.  Rolling hills wear me out much faster than long uphill ascents followed by long downhill descents.  After just 40 miles, I was more wiped out than I was yesterday after 80+ miles.  I think the exhaustion is cumulative, which is bad, because we have some significant climbing coming up heading into Silver City, New Mexico in a couple of days.  I’ll worry about that later.

The scenery was constantly changing, today.  From farmland to lush desert, to sparse desert with just creosote bushes, to desert that looked like it hadn’t seen rain in a long time.   Overall, it was beautiful, with lovely vistas in every direction.  

Once we arrived in Duncan, we congregated at Hilda’s Restaurant–the only restaurant in town, and took over 4 tables.  At the end of each ride, we all have tales to tell about our day. It’s fun to hear each other’s perspectives on the things we all saw throughout the day. 

Our next stop was Centennial Park, where we pitched our tents (Ken coordinated with the city to make sure they don’t turn the sprinklers on us during the night).  Once the athletic programs for students were over at the high school, we got to shower in the football locker room.  FYI, I have never bathed in such a filthy shower.  

I pulled a chair in there to put my various hygiene items, clean and dirty clothes, towel (more like a little shammy), etc. on; took my shower; then when I turned to grab my towel, it had fallen in the floor–the creepy, dirty floor.  In the real world, I would have thrown it away or burned it, but I didn’t have another option. So I dried myself off with the parts of the towel that hadn’t hit the ground.  On the way out of the gym, one of the guys told me that they had forgotten to give me the towel provided by the gym.  Nice. 

 

 

 

I am writing this in a room of sleeping men, at least 5 of whom have a snoring syncopation going on.  Will have to keep it short.  

After my super late start yesterday, I made sure I was one of the first people to breakfast and also one of the first out of the motel.  As we left Globe on our longest ride yet–81 miles, we entered the San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation which is famous for its Apache Gold Casino.  

The place has pretty much put the entertainment industry in Globe out of business with its own modern bowling alley, rodeo grounds, and of course the casino.  

My daughter and a couple I talked to at the Roosevelt Lake Visitors Center warned me about how dangerous it would be to ride a bike through the reservation.  With the early start, the traffic was very light until around noon, which gave us time to make our way through most of it, anyhow.

We were expecting a somewhat flat route from an elevation profile provided by Adventure Cycling, but the route was anything but flat.  It started out with a couple of really nice downhills, then was “rollers” (aka rolling hills) for the rest of the day–the kind where you pick up speed on the downhill but never have enough momentum to make it even halfway up the next hill, because it is higher than the one you just came down.  Even with the headwind that carried over from yesterday, we somehow managed to make good time.  

Our first real water stop was in Bylas at about 11:30–midway through the ride.  Tom Calhoun arrived first.  I had been riding by myself and arrived a few minutes after him, then the others pulled in about 20 minutes later.  There were so many drunk and disheveled locals coming and going, that Tom was concerned about me riding out on my own again.  We ended up riding together the rest of the day, I guess so he could fight off anyone who messed with me.  Sounds paranoid, but I actually appreciated not traveling though that area alone.

I’m not sure when we left the reservation, but very suddenly the scenery changed from high desert to lush Gila Valley farmland. 

 I explained to Tom that the towns we were about to go through were all predominately Mormon, and he asked how that happened.  So I told him how Brigham Young chose families to settle there, like my Grandfather’s family, because of the fertile farmland and Gila River.  

When we got to Pima, I stopped to get a photo of the Temple.

In Thatcher, Tom went off course with me to go to the city cemetary to see my Grandparent’s grave.  For some reason, I couldn’t remember where it was.  Had to call my Aunt Joy up in Provo to get help.  

Once that mission was accomplished, we high tailed it to the Sunrise Village RV park where we are staying tonight.  One guy didn’t ride today, due to sore knees, and two others got a hotel room, so there are only 9 of us.  The manager of the place let us cook and stay in the community center, so we didn’t have to set up tents or cook over camp stoves.  But boy is it cozy.  ​The following video is payback for all the guys photographing me when I was sleeping outside on a chair.

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Before I even get going here, let me just notice you on a correction to the title of yesterday’s blog post. Yesterday, I ended up in Tonto Basin, not Globe.  I have corrected the title of the post on WordPress, but it lives on forever on FaceBook.  Note to self:  Don’t attempt writing anything when you are dozing off.  It may not go well.  

Today, I got a late start, owing to the fact that I fell asleep last night while working on the blog, then had to finish it under the gun this morning.   I don’t even want to admit the time of my departure, but I will so I can demonstrate transparency, in case Donald Trump ever comes across my blog in all of his social networking.  I rode out at 9 AM.  

In may defense, Eric, the token youngster in our group, departed just a few minutes before me and arrived Globe later than I did.  But who cares about that?  Oh, our ride leader Ken does.  He was irritated with both me and Eric, so announced a new rule today.  The ride leader will depart with or without the last riders 1.5 hours after breakfast.  I feel pressure.  

A good part of today’s route had views of Roosevelt Lake, a place I have fond memories of.  I used to go there with my best friend Jacki Paul back when we were single, and we honed our water skiing and beach camping skills. We learned some other things too, like how to change the color or our swimsuit by swimming in lake water (Jacki perfected the technique).  Later on, I took Camille camping there a couple of times, as part of the long vacation she and I took together each summer.  I hadn’t been back since then, and that must have been 12 – 16 years ago.  

I was a little surprised by the beach scene–high end RVs and travel trailers, no modest little tents like the one Camille and I camped in, back in the day.  Going further back, in Jacki’s pre-twin days, she and I cowboy camped on the beach.  What has happened to the world?

Roosevelt Lake is over 22 miles long, and looking at it from every possible angle took my mind off the fact that we were riding into a headwind that entire distance.  

Around the time Camille was born, I worked at Salt River Project, the company that manages the watershed and dams along the Salt River.  A huge project was underway to raise the height of Roosevelt Dam 77 feet and to move the traffic that crossed over the dam to a new suspension bridge.  It’s really pretty amazing to look at the end result.  I mentioned that little bit of history to Ken, as we rode over the bridge, and he didn’t believe me.  

When we had motored ourselves to the end of the lake, the road angled upward, and now we were climbing into a headwind.  Okay, so it was a little tiring and slow going, but having a cool breeze on my face sure was nice.   Better still was the fact that for a second day, the temperature topped out at 88 degrees.  What are the chances of that?  

I didn’t remember the amount of climbing involved in getting from the lake to Globe.  You don’t notice things like that when you travel by car, as I had in the past.  There was one really great descent that I was really enjoying until it got cut short near the bottom by a bungee chord malfunction on my bike.  

The chord that held (notice my verb tense here) the large pot I carry for the group came unhooked on one end as we neared the end of the descent, and I started hearing erratic clicking around my pedals and the rear wheel.  While braking, because I instinctively knew something was amiss, I glanced down to see chord bouncing back and forth and hitting the spokes–a disaster waiting to happen.  And as happens with many disasters waiting to happen, it finally happened.  The loose hook grabbed onto two of my spokes and started quickly wrapping around the wheel between the disc brake and the hub.   I’m not sure if my braking or the bungee chord running out of chord to wrap around the wheel caused the bike to come to a quick and sudden stop, but I was relieved it was a stop and not a crash.  But now the rear hub was tangled in a bungee chord stretched to its limit with both hooks jammed in sensitive places that could result in damage to the wheel or disc brake if they were not carefully removed.  

Ken whipped out his handy little Leatherman saw and cut through the chord, but we could only remove part of it.  The two hooks were still jammed up.  I thought removing the wheel, if it would even come off, might help, so we tried that.  It did help a little.  He was now able to get at one of the hooks and weaken it by sawing on it, and we then were able to jiggle it enough to free it up and unhook it.  Once all the chord and hooks were removed, we put the wheel back on and gave it a spin.  The disc brake was not bent and the wheel was still true.  Can you believe it?  Just when I was thinking I’m unlucky, I found out that I’m lucky after all.  I hopped back on the bike, tested the brakes and derailleurs, let out a celebratory “yahoo”, and hit the road again.  

The remainder of the ride took us past ranches and mines leading into Globe.  

Then we were on US-60 for 5 white knuckle miles of crazy drivers, but no bike lane–passing through a busy, hilly and winding business district.  I made it to the Motel 6 by about 5:20 PM–alive, but wasted.  

If you read yesterday’s blog post, the title said I ended up in Globe, but I changed that.  Note to self, don’t try to write this gibberish when you are dozing off.

Goodbye household carnage, hello again, bike touring.  After a completely sleepless night getting things in order to leave my house for another 56 days, my ex-husband, Jerry, gave me and my loaded up bike a ride to the Motel 6 in Tempe, where most of the group stayed during our day off. 

Ed and I hit the road around 9 AM–a preplanned late start, because we had a short day ahead of only 27 riding miles.  The route took us through ASU, then residential areas of Mesa, before plopping us down in the area of Northeast Mesa where I have been doing climbing training for the past few months.

We took a detour to get our 50% Veteran’s discount on Sorbet at Golden Spoon (corner of Power Rd and McDowell Rd).  Were it not a 5 mile ride downhill from our campsite (and thus 5 miles back uphill to get back) to get there, we might have gone back for more later. It was so yummy!

Kudos to Ken for finding such an amazing group campsite for us at Usery Mountain Regional Park.  

We had been worried about how we were going to stay cool for the rest of the afternoon, but when we saw the huge ramada, we knew that wasn’t going to be an issue. Everyone set up their tents in the shade of the ramada and most of us napped for a few hours. Well, I say that, because they were napping when I fell asleep. I’m not sure what everyone else was doing once I went down, because I was in a coma. They were all awake when someone woke me for dinner.  

Dinner, oh dinner.   Let’s just say that it was unbelievable.  A couple of cyclists, Gary and Debra Nine, were our train angels today.  In looking into Adventure Cycling tours, they noticed that the Southern Tier route used to go through Apache Junction where they own and operate Los Gringos Locos, a Mexican food restaurant.  They called Adventure Cycling and offered to provide a free dinner at their restaurant to our group.  When they heard that the route no longer goes through Apache Junction, they offered to bring dinner to us, which they did.  

What a spread!  It started with margaritas, soft drinks, chips, salsa and guacamole, then moved to the main course, which was beef and chicken fajitas.  We’re talking super tender and super delicious fajitas, here.  For desert, they served up homemade churos.  I will never forget the kindness and generosity of this couple and can’t wait to visit their restaurant again when I get home.    

As we watched the setting sun, all of us were caught up in how lucky we were to be in this quiet little spot where we could see and enjoy both spectular scenery and the kindness and generosity of strangers.  

I was so excited to be coming through Phoenix on my route across the US.  After sleeping on the ground in a tent, for several days, my bed was going to be heavenly.  As I rode along, today, I was too distracted by daydreams of lounging around my home and pool to even take photos.  I didn’t take a photo of the Hassayampa River as we left Wickenburg.  No picture of the sign entering Morristown.  No photo of Whitman.  No photo of the people gathered at the McDonalds as we entered Surprise.  No photos of the Arizona Canal, which we rode on from 91st Avenue in Surprise to 68th Street in Scottsdale.  No photos of the Arizona Biltmore.  No photos of the spectacular desert around the Desert Botanical Gardens.  No photos of the team efforts to fix four flat tires on two of the bikes or the heroic late afternoon hydration run by Tom R.  I didn’t even get a group photo of the friends who met me at Cafe Rio for Taco Tuesday this evening:  Catherine, Jean, Jerry, Geri, Ally, Kimberly and Christina.   I really fell down on the job!

So lets talk about the photos I did get.  While we were riding along the Arizona Canal, just as we were overheating and needing a break, we bumped into a good sized group of fellow riders talking to a cycling enthusiast who was willing to shoot some photos, so we scored a few people photos.

When we arrived Tempe, my ex-husband Jerry brought our pickup trip to the Motel to pick me and Erwin up.  Erwin had an overnight visit planned with friends in town, and you already know what I had planned.  After dropping Erwin off in Mountain Park Ranch, Jerry dropped me off at my house, where, as I walked in the front door, I was greeted by dank air and the sound of water spraying.  Moving closer to the sound, I noticed that the carpet in the living room was wet and sloshy.  A few more steps, and I could see that there was water on the floor of the kitchen and the master bedroom. The leak was coming from the supply line connection to the master bath toilet.  The cabinets, counters, mirrors, closets and floors were soaked with water.

Of course, I called the insurance company, and they sent a water extraction team to start tearing things up and drying the house out, leaving behind 15 fans and one heavy duty device that extracts water from the air.  Tomorrow, they will return to pack out my bedroom, bathrooms and closets, because some drywall work and new cabinetry are going to be required. So this is what I took photos of.  Hope you enjoy them.  Tomorrow, I had big plans for seeing my grand babies, but now I have this insurance issue to deal with on top of everything else I was hoping to do.

 

 

Hate to say it, but the days seem to be running together now.  As one who lives in Arizona, there is desert that wows me, and there is desert that doesn’t, and the past couple of days we’ve been traveling through the later.  Add to that the fact that we keep running into headwinds, and everything starts getting blurry.

Today, we started out at 7 AM, our earliest start yet, and made our way through another sequence of small little known towns.

First was Wenden, a sleep stop on the MS 150s I rode back in the late 80s and early 90s.  it was pretty much unchanged from how I remembered it back then.  The school where we ate our meals looked exactly the same as I remembered it.

Next, we hit Gladden, another nondescript small town.  Why do people live in these remote places with no services?  Someone fill me in on this, please.

As we moved down the road, Aguila was the biggest town yet, and our last chance for water before Wickenburg.  Here, most of the signs were in Spanish, and almost everyone we saw was Hispanic.  The town had a lot more going on than any of the towns we’d passed through, since entering Arizona, including a railhead, a large agricultural silo operation, and quite a few open businesses.  There were school aged children out and about, versus the senior citizen populations of the other towns on our day’s route.

Part of our group was taking a break in the shade next to the one convenience stores in town.  Neal and Tom R. peeled off from them to join us for a second breakfast at the Coyote Cafe, a place Ken had heard about.  The place turned out to be a cute little old diner with stools at a counter and the most amazing food. Totally enjoyed the stop.

During our breakfast we reviewed the map and elevation profile, so we knew that there was a steady 15 mile climb ahead of us.  Add to that a headwind, and those miles drug on and on.  At some point, we got our payback, and rode downhill into Wickenburg.

Ed rode ahead to the campground, Ken stopped to pick up straggler riders, and I headed to the old downtown area to check out the touristy shops and to hopefully get a treat of some kind.  I found an Amish-run diner that served coconut cream pie, which put a smile on my face.

Tomorrow we have a 70 mile ride to Tempe where the group will have a rest day at the Motel 6 on Priest Dr.  I will continue on to my house and sleep in my own bed for a couple of nights.  I’m looking forward to spending some time with my daughter and grandkids. If any of you who are following this want to meet for Taco Tuesday at the Rural & Baseline Cafe Rio, text message me for details.

It was a short day of riding, today, and the entire day was spent passing through the Arizona desert, 14 miles of which was on I-10 in heavy semi traffic.

That was 14 more miles of dodging shreds of steel belted radials and other debris.  If you’re not a cyclist, you may not be aware that the fine little wires in those shreds of tire are a major hazard to bike tires. And when they flatten a bike tire, they are so fine that it is almost impossible to find and remove them. If you don’t find the wire or other debris that is the source of a flat, and remove it from the tire, it will still be there to flatten the next tube you install.

I haven’t had any flats, yet, but one of the guys in our group has had one or more 0f them  each day.  He has been blaming his tires, which happen to be the most bombproof touring tires on the market. Today, he finally found one of those itty bitty wires in his tube and was able to track it down and remove it from the tire.  My guess is that he doesn’t put as much energy into dodging those tire shreds as I do.  Or maybe he’s just not lucky.

Our 38.9 route consisted of two long hills and passed through three small towns on the way to Salome.  All of the towns in this part of the state are like ghost towns in the summertime, but in the wintertime are packed with winter visitors.  Quartzite, where we stayed last night, Will have over 250,000 visitors in RVs rolling in in a couple more months. I can’t even imagine that many senior citizens in one place at one time.

The first town we ran into, Brenda, had what looked like a really nice local market, but it wasn’t open on Sunday, so we sat out on its shaded front porch and ate an early lunch at 10 AM.  Sounds crazy, I know, but we were hungry again–already.  After leaving Brenda, the wind picked up, and the climb to Hope was painfully slow.  Thankfully, Hope had an open market that was stocked with snacks and cold beverages.  We hung out under a shady overhang for a while, talking to others from our group who also stopped for a break and an occasional motorist on his or her way to the casinos in Nevada.

After another run of uphill cycling into a headwind, we passed through Harcuvar.  No joy there, as nothing in town was open for business, so we kept moving.

Salome is a relative metropolis, compared to all the other towns we passed through today. It even has its own Lion’s Club, monuments to unknown people, US Air Force mothballed missile display, and of course the high end motel we stayed in.

We arrived at our motel just before 1 PM, but some of the guys rolled in as early as 10 AM. Our rooms weren’t ready until past 2 PM, and the motel owner wasn’t back from church to give us keys till about then anyhow, so we hung out in the shade and waited.

After assessing the grocery situation in town, Ken decided that we would be getting another restaurant meal for dinner (the natives rejoiced), so we moseyed over to the only open eating establishment in town and were its only dinner customers. The chef had some mad skills that left all of us pretty happy.  For the record, half of us ate bacon burgers and the other half Mexican food, so we made it easy for her.

On a day like that, after a meal like that, there is only one thing left to do. We all turned in early, including me.

Having received numerous comments telling me to be safe, I want you to know that I’m doing my best.  To illustrate that, I’ve thrown in a video one of the guys shot of me a couple of days ago.
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Pretty exciting, eh?  The flashing front light hopefully gets the attention of people turning and pulling out into traffic in front of me.  Too bad The video doesn’t show my back side, which was lit up like a Christmas tree.  There’s a multi-beamed led light on my helmet, another on the pot I carry for the group on top of my rear rack, a good sized reflector, custom made by Jay Stewart from a portion of a highway sign, on my rear rack, and two slow moving vehicle triangles mounted to the cooking pot and one of my panniers.  I am doing more than any other person in the group to be visible in traffic.  If you have other ideas you think might help me up my game, send me a comment.  End of subject.

Stopping to smell the roses and take in the sights along the way keeps us entertained as we move down the road. And the small group of riders I’m hanging with stops fairly frequently to check out interesting things we see and to take photos.  An added benefit of the stops is that it gives our bodies a much needed break from peddling.  Today was a day with lots of those breaks.

After leaving Palo Verde, and passed 20 more miles of lush farmland before arriving Blythe, where we stopped at a local diner to celebrate our upcoming crossing of the Colorado River and entrance to Arizona. Yee haw!

There were signs on the pedestrian bridge discouraging jumping and diving into the river, so we shelved any ideas we might have had about cooling off in the water. After several photo ops, we got back on the route, which was a now I-10.

I love Arizona, but,where I was riding today, we sure do a poor job of keeping the emergency lanes and shoulders of our freeways clear of debris that could potentially flatten a bike tire. About 16 miles of today’s ride felt like an obstacle course of glass and steel belted radial fragments.

Our route took us through the corner of the Colorado River Indian Reservation, then we found ourselves in the Sonoran Desert again.

After climbing the Dome Rock Mountains, ducking under freeway underpasses to cool off ,and passing miles and miles of Bureau of Land Management (BLM) land, that in the winter is blanketed with winter visitors in RVs, we arrived our quarters for the night at the Quartzite Yacht Club.

After showering and changing, we hopped on our bikes to grab some ice cream from Mcdonalds, then headed down Main Street to see the town.  This town basically shuts down in the summer months, so hardly anything was open.  We stumbled upon a book store, Reader’s Oasis Books, that none of us will ever forget, no matter how hard we try.  My friend Lloyd Porter put it this way:  “You can’t unsee it.”

***** WARNING!  DO NOT READ BEYOND THIS POINT IF YOU AVOID PG-13 MEDIA *****

The proprietor, Paul Winer, is a talented, 74-year-old honky tonk musician who recorded his most recent CD just 3 weeks ago.  He also is an exhibitionist who operates his business wearing only the male equivalent of a G-string, minus the string.  He has a great collection of books, at least a couple of which I would have bought for myself, were i not on a transcontinental bike ride with no extra room for souvenirs.

Paul uncovered a grand piano that is disguised as a book shelf and display table, then played one of his recent compositions for us.  Here is a short video clip of his performance.  Being the divorcée that I am, I confess that I love the lyrics, but beyond that, I am scarred for life by the visual of this guy, and I truly can’t unsee it.

After our tour of Main Street, we went back to our motel and met up with the rest of the crew for dinner at Silly Al’s.

A couple of super delicious 20 inch pizzas filled every one of us to the brim.  Then we headed back to our air conditioned quarters where we slept really well.  A break from camping and the early morning sounds of people tearing down camp was awesome!