An overdue update
Hello friends! I’m currently in Flagstaff, which lies roughly at mile 540 of the route. On day 1, I biked from Sierra Vista, AZ down to the border wall (i.e. a scar on the earth) then up along the San Pedro river, up to Hereford. Day 2 was a hot one, with a lot of road miles on the climb up to Tombstone. I made it to an RV park in Benson well after dark…the last leg of that journey involved miles of dirt roads, hoisting the bike over a locked gate, and dragging it under a barbed wire fence next to another locked gate. I still felt able to answer “Yes” when the gas station cashier in Benson asked if I was stayin’ safe out there ;-)
Day 3 was a short one…I took my time getting going from the campground and spend a bunch of time in Benson resupplying at the grocery store and hardware store. Plus about an hour at Wendy’s. I camped in a lovely spot off a dirt road in (don’t worry, not IN in) one of the washes south of Cascabel.
Day 4 biked up to Cascabel and spent some time at the community center there. A guy there who had overalls and a MacGyver-like mullet tipped me off to the presence of bagels in the fridge, to which I added my dehydrated refried beans (henceforth DRBs, derbs or derbies), cheese, cucumber and hot sauce. We chatted a bit, and I asked how he liked Cascabel. He replied straightaway with, “It’s a good place to die!” With more probing he shared that it was a good place to live, too. The community center was an hour’s walk from his place up in Pool Wash, so he could use the computer/internet to get his conspiracy theories and vitriol from Tucker Carlson and Fox News. Add some solar panels and water from a neighbor’s well and life was good. After he left I was able to rock out to The Scene and Shazam’d the song “Mother Grease the Cat” by Ancient Grease, which would help propel me up Redington pass a while later.
It was about 9:30p by the time I got up over the pass (4,296’). I saw an owl and thought I lost my rain pants but didn’t! That’s an entertaining story that maybe I’ll recount later. Eventually I found an unoccupied dispersed camping site along the road. I’d been planning to eat hummus, cucumber and tortilla but it turned out I hadn’t actually packed the dehydrated hummus I’d ordered back in Boston. DRB’s it was! Made a little fire and looked out at the twinkling lights of Tucson before turning in.
On Day 5 I took my time getting going. I took a walk back up the hill to see the view, jogged down (!) and then as I was packing up met Nathan and Shelby who were biking loaded mtb’s up to the pass. Shelby was spending the night in a scenic canyon on the other side, and Nathan was along for the ride, though he’d head back to Tucson rather than camp. Nathan and I exchanged info, and I’d end up spending several nights at his apartment, and then five days biking together up to Flagstaff! That’s where I am now, taking some needed rest days before making the next push up north towards the Grand Canyon. I’m staying with a former coworker from BHCHP (the second one I’ve met up with on this trip!), watching the Tunnel Fire, and enjoying being clean, having ample food and water, and not moving for a bit.
