Silver City, NM to Tempe Arizona

by John

Before leaving Silver City we picked up my bike from Gila Hike and Bike, a wonderful community-oriented shop, where they re-tensioned my rear wheel and sold me some heavy but flat-proof Schwalbe extra-kevlar tires. it was a rough day of riding with stiff headwinds that sometimes slowed us to a crawl. We decided to camp at a USFS primitive site near the base of the near dy's mountain climb.

It was the coldest night of camping ever but a big fire helped warm out feet. The next morning our water bottles were frozen and i was worried we'd have nothing to drink for the climb so I flagged down an old man from Maine who was leaving the campground and he kindly gave us some of his water.

The descent down the back of the mountain was exhilerating. At the bottom at a little crossroads called Three Way we met Tim, an itinerant preacher who said he'd been preaching in the poorest areas of Tuscon and was now heading to Albuquerque to bring the Word to the local crack dens. He was traveling via a $20 mountain bike with a large backpack on his back.

After a long, easy climb up Guthrie Pass we descended to the Gila River Valley growing area. We caught up with Adrian at the Bullpen in Safford, "The friendliest bar in town" where we consumed many excellent Bloody Mary's. I met Keith, an Anglo from Yuma, who spoke at length about how glad he was he'd gone to Mexico to find his third and current wife, a "sexy grandmother" at 45.

Next day we followed the Gila into the San Carlos Apache Reservation for much hilly riding. It was interesting to stop at a modern supermarket in the town of Peridot staffed and patronized entirely by Native Americans with signage in the Apache language.

We spent the night at the Apache Gold Casino Resort. Adrian camped out at the adjacent RV park, but I was pretty fried after riding and sneezing all day with a bad cold. I asked Liz if we could take advantage of the resort's "Stay and Play" package - a nice motel room, dinner for two and four cocktails for $59. Adrian got my two drinks since I wasn't feeling up for drinking.

Our waitress, a chubby local girl with pigtails and cat-eye glasses, was very cute. She nearly spilled the sauce from my pork loin in my lap and warned Liz not to order the Shrimp Alfredo because the crustacions looked past their prime. But she also told us she has Christmas lights installed in her wedding dress and unlike other girls on the reservation, preferred Warhol to 50 Cent.

There were two climbs the next day, after which we had a wonderful descent into the valley that holdss the Phoenix metro area. Although it's a desert, the area is lush with succulent plants, including 20-foot tall cactuses. There was a gorgeous moon rise as we made our way to Lost Dutchman State Park to camp underneath the awesome, tooth-like superstition Mountains.

Today we hung out and camp, hiked a little and visited a touristy ghost town before heading into the Apache Junction, Mesa and Tempe. The urban area is andd unrelenting grid of busy multi-laned streets, usually with bike lanes on theem, but all the locals seem to ride on the sidewalk.

At the end of the day at a bar we met Randy, a welder from Eau Claire, Wisconsin who is in town helping to build a cheese factory. He told us about the finer points of snowmobiling and ice fishing and he attributed his magnificent mullet to his being a redneck.

We stayed at a Super 8 in Tempe. Adrian was exhausted but Liz and I hit Mill Street, a happening nightlife area for Vieetnamese pho soup, excellent for my cold, and Irish whisky. The next day we'll part ways with Adrian who flies home, but it's been a lot of fun traveling with him.