25th – 26th Oct 2018

Phoenix 

The sun came up and shone on the rock face outside our big windows, around 7am. The stupid monkey alarm was off this morning. We had a lovely night, and felt well rested. Dave has convinced us to stay another night, and we’ll get to meet his wife Betsy. So we enjoyed the view, with a couple of coffees, and made ourselves some scrambled eggs, ham and tomato, for breakfast.

The day wasn’t wasted, with Will giving the chains a clean and oil, after our water crossing, and me blogging and chilling out a bit. I made time to enjoy creating another Mandala. I haven’t made as much time as I had thought I would, but it is a really nice thing to spend time on. I’m so grateful to my good friend Delys, for persisting with me, and helping me develop the confidence to do it. Anyone can enjoy it, and I would totally recommend it for calming and focusing your mind. Check out Dilli Delli, on Facebook, or at Her website and book a workshop. Why not?

 

He loves doing the bike maintenance, better than bik

In the evening, we sat on Dave’s porch, and enjoyed the city lights. Betsy came home from work, and they made us dinner. It was extremely pleasant, and we are so lucky to have been in the right spot, at the right time. 

The beautiful red rock faces as the sun sets, and the city views from the porch.

Phoenix to Apache Bush Camp (Approx 20kms past Peridot) -90 miles driving, 50kms Cycling.

The monkeys had another day off, as last night Dave had insisted on driving us to the top of the hill at Globe. He really didn’t want us to ride on highway 60, which is sometimes very busy, has a small shoulder, climbs a long way through the Superstition Mountains, and has a deadly tunnel. Well, the way he spoke about it, made us not want to ride it either. So we happily accepted the offer, and got ourselves packed and ready by 9:30am. 

Dave has the kids secured safely in the pickup, and we are all set.

Now, this is going to cut off three days off riding, and now I’ll need to look at our next three days riding. I’m not prepared. But the drive was a pleasant one, and although the shoulder looked okay to me, there was a fair bit of traffic, and the tunnel was going uphill, had no shoulder, and no walk path. We would have had to ride it, and it would have been scary.

Aargh the tunnel! Yep, it wasn’t a good one, and we were super happy to come out the other side. Thanks Dave, you really have saved us a drama.

Going through the mountains was quite spectacular, and steep. Two lanes each way, and winding around the worst of the peaks. Within no time at all, we arrived in Globe. Dave kept driving. Hmm, he says he wants to get us over the hill, then we’ll have a nice down hill-ish ride through the Apache Reservation, about 70kms. Well, there goes my idea of staying in Globe, and getting away early tomorrow, to do the whole reservation. I’m not riding up a hill, back to town. So Dave dumped us off, and watched us load our steeds, then galloped off into the setting sun, in his old F250, leaving us standing like numpties on the side of the highway. What now?

Nothing to do, but ride on! Neither of us had dressed for riding, and we were both hungry, so we wheeled over to a little rest area, with shelters and tables, fed ourselves, and dressed for the however many kilometres, we could manage. It’s only midday, so we can ride for at least 3 or 4 hours, and that is what we did. It was a good deal of downhill, all the way to Peridot, where we stopped to stock up on water and groceries. We are within the Apache reservation, and technically not allowed to camp without a permit. There is no accommodation or camping grounds in this little town, so we carry on. The road is now doing the roller coaster thing, and the views are beautiful. The biggest issue, is the fences along both sides of the road. Oh, and the stupid dick shoulder. Wide, but with wayward rumble strip, and huge cracks like speed humps, every two meters.

It was a pretty good days ride, all things considered. We were ready to stop though. What a fantastic place.

It came time to start seriously looking for a camp. The sun is setting soon after 5.30pm now, and we want to have our home and dinner sorted before dark. No fires, we don’t want to be found doing the wrong thing. As luck would have it just as we were starting to fade, both of us spotted an opening in the fence. We didn’t hesitate. A quick U-turn while no vehicles were around, and we disappeared off the road and into a wash out, come dry river bed. There was plenty of rubbish around, and old fires, which made us a little nervous. Will went off to scout for a better spot, and walked along the river bed. What seemed like forever, a whole ten minutes, passed, and he reappeared. “You (why me?) have three options, but the last one seems best to me.” Says Will. So off we trudge, pushing our heavy bikes along the pretty firm river bed, and Will was right, number three was great.

Surrounded by mid sized Mesquites, and some firm flat ground, and we are far enough off the road to be hard to find. There was plenty of cow, poop around, but all dry and old, so we did our best to remove what we could, and got to setting up our camp. We took a brief rest (and ate a big bag of chips), then made dinner. We had everything cleaned and sorted before dark. We even had ourselves a half cup wash, again. As soon as the sun had gone, it got cold, so we were in bed and snuggled up as darkness fell. A bit of reading, and I was asleep before 8pm. The monkey alarm is back on duty tomorrow!

A little rest, cook some chicken, veggie and rice concoction, then sleep. Great spot. Didn’t hear a thing.