Monday rest day in Tempe and Week One summary

Some pictures from the baseball game in Tempe on our first rest day, last Monday.

Angels won by one with a walk-off two run homer in the bottom of the 9th. Good game, nice weather.

The three days after this rest day were tough. 10-12 hours riding, getting in camp with just enough time and energy to set camp, eat, shower and go to bed. But really beautiful week and I will catch up tomorrow.

Day Eight: and ye shall rest.....

Monday March 17   rest day in Tempe, AZ

This is not a bad concept, Monday as a rest day. So I am intent on doing some miscellaneous, restful type activities.

Catch up on odds and ends of blogging. From yesterday, YES I got impatient and went from no pictures on the blog to double pictures on the picture add-on, but NO I did not intentionally frame the road kill into the open vista scene yesterday. Kind of looks like the 'doggie' from the movie Rat Race.

I mentioned falling in love twice yesterday morning.  Of course these relationships can be brief. I ate one of my loves and the other, the shoulder of US 60, is rumored to turn nasty tomorrow, climbing, withdrawing its shoulder and tossing us into the mountains where we find a new friend, US 70. This road actually goes thru/near Elon, NC, where my wife works at Elon Univ. A connection for tomorrow.  US 70, many, many years ago went thru Biscoe, my hometown. I love looking at maps and seeing where roads go.  Go figure.

Yesterday's "shortcut" apparently saved 7 miles, got me in first, which surprised the heck out of Marlin the Magnificent Rider (Bend, OR) that Larry the Last of the Lame, was already there. Surprises every day on the road.

Sinus infection. Started the first day out. Miserable. Couldn't talk, no one complained though about that. Finally called Dave Buckland, saved once again by Dave. Still not well, but am moving. The group and leaders took pity on me, I tend to moan in my sleep when sick, asked what my family would do if I were at home. I said they would make me move to the other end of the house until better and not moaning. The next night, sure enough, my Adventure Cycling family had moved my stuff to the far end of the campground with a note, "just like being at home"

Off to see the Giants and Angels play a spring training game.

Day Seven pictures

Day Seven: by the time we get to Phoenix...

Sunday March 16th.  An easy day...

Finally. Wasn't expecting today to be hard, but wasn't really looking for an easy day. 71 miles, fairly long. But it was mostly downhill, a tailwind and I fell in love.  Two times. One day.

I feel first for its smooth texture, its changing complexion and coloring just added intrigue. Racing smooth slimness.  Curvy? Just right. An aroma of a tailwind. Yes, I fell in love with the road surface of US 60. Yet, like any item with caring about, there is the possibility of a sudden change in personality. A side ready to swallow you up and spit you out, clearly "don't come any closer". The diagnosis for this temperament is referred to in journals as a rumble strip.

When you've been out for a while, you develop tenderness where the body comes in contact with the seat, throw in friction and heat from pedaling and voila!  Seat sores. You move and adjust, apply cream,  you just have to ride them out. But!!  When you hit a rumble strip and you have such tenderness,  oh, lala!  It's special.

Falling in love again, Jack in the Box. Not sure I had ever eaten at one of these places before. Did this morning. Combo 23:  breakfast croissant. I will remember that brief but lasting encounter.

Decision time. The official route for Adventure a Cycling thru Phoenix is, just say serpentine. Complicated. Many map readings. But as safe as they could determine for us to go. One of the riders, Gabe from Little Rock, pictured earlier, and I pondered staying on US60 for many more miles and take ONE turn and basically get to where we needed to be. Safest? No, but not that bad on a Sunday.  Saved miles, a lot. AND had I just nog fallen in love with US 60. W

Day Six: straight that a way, partner, for many a mile.

March 14 From Salome to Wickenberg, AZ

Probably need to note that in my joy of rhyming CA here we go to New Mexico yesterday, I could have created a somewhat misleading notion that somehow we jumped over Arizona. Couldn't do that, (could we?).  A big, wide, beautiful state with looming tall mountains to cross. No, we want to do it all.

We have a map meeting every night after dinner. Some are complicated, like getting out of San Diego. For this day's ride?  Leave motel, turn right on US 60, go straight for about 55 miles. No turns, no towns, no curves. Straight. Slightly uphill, but a tail wind.

There is a mental factor when all you can see is forever straight and uphill. There was eventually a little pass and downhill to Wickenberg. We did force ourselves to stop and have a milk shake, I felt obligated to also try their burgers. Awesome.

Camping was at the Horse-patality RV park. A incredibly beautiful desert moon. The Spirit of the Desert did speak loudly and strongly with gusty winds for much of the night and then just stopped. I was happy that the Spirit went to bed or whatever.

Note:  one interesting cultural statement out here are the hundreds of thousands of folks that folk to the desert during the winter. May be in an organized RV park, but mostly they just go to the desert and park. They develop systems of water/sewage intake and take away, food supplies, etc. maybe some loose governing councils, but this is the West. Independent, so not too much of any organization.

Day Five: California here we go, all the way to New Mexico....

Friday. March 14. Blythe to Salome.

The day Beyond Hope.

Coming east, always a derivative of east, no west for sure, we soon crossed the Colorado River on I-10. You can ride bikes on the interstates in CA, had one fantastic 8 mile downhill on I-10.  There isn't an alternative in many places. It's nice, but loud. And constant. You aren't sad to say goodbye to these roads, unless...you hit really bad surfaces, but that didn't really happen today. Actually not much happened. We had three climbs, around 1000 ft each, a bit of a tailwind, nice and it was hot, surprise, surprise.

Pictures...

We also had a philosophical quandary, were we really beyond Hope. So Hope and Beyond Hope, grammar is yours to enjoy or not.

Day Four continued.

Sorry about delay. Technical knowledge and time, both in short supply.

The overcast did help, but soon left. By the time we got to Palo Verde, there was 20 miles left and I was nearing the end of my desire to have more fun that day.

Then 3 things happened, near miracles when you think about it.  One, the cloud cover reappeared. In force. Temp dropped immediately. Two, this town was on the county line and at the edge of town the pavement became smooth. Oh so smooth. Like "margarine" smooth. And finally, the best of the three.  A golden retriever named Titus showed up, saw me and came over. He basically said, "Larry, you look in need to love on a golden.  Come give me a rub!"  I did, gosh it felt good, oh so good.

Got a motel that night in Blythe. Nice not to have to set up the tent. All in all it was tough, but beautiful. The attached pictures don't have Titus included, he declined. The mountains are the Chocolate Drop Mtns. The Imperial is part of the Yahu  Desert, which we were also in the day before. I don't know what craziness spell check put there yesterday.