Cycling Ellen

54 miles today
472 total

Sitting in the hallway of the Super 8 motel waiting for our rooms to be cleaned.  Fortunately, the laptop works out in the hall and the floor is comfortable after being on a bike seat for a few hours.

We left Phoenix knowing we had an easy day ahead.  The sun was shining but not as hot and windy as yesterday.  The whole first half of the ride was through residential neighborhoods and with it being a Saturday there was very little traffic.  We saw several weekend cyclists and many, many yard sales.  Sometimes it’s hard to remember what day of the week it is but with those indicators, I’ll recognize a Saturday.

The homes got fancier and fancier through Scottsdale.  The sag stop was at a beautiful park filled with touch football games and a fishing pond.  There was a nice bike path (not just a lane on the street) for a couple of miles filled with walkers, dogs and an occasional roller blader.  As we headed out of town, we were back in farmland with tractors blowing up dust.  We had been warned on our cue sheet of dogs on the next turn and the dogs seemed to know that as many came running and barking out at the cyclists.  I learned to stick with Debbie who has perfected her “Go home!” bark right back at them.  The road was rough but it was only 7 miles.  As we spotted the sign for our turn, there were barriers and big “Road Closed” signs.  Oops.  Apparently, it was flooded so we consulted a couple of local bikers and our maps to chose an alternate route.  We spent most of the rest of the day biking through stoplights, a big Latin community, and miles and miles of retirement communities.  Some are like RV parks, others with gates and fountains but there sure were lots of them!

We stopped for take out pizza about 10 miles away from our destination sitting on a curb in the sun.  Not quite the same as our gourmet dinners from the trailer but it worked.  We found out last night at dinner that our cook, Linda, is being featured in Bicycling Magazine in May with her recipe for macaroni and cheese cooked on the road.  She deserves recognition – we are all spoiled by her delicious food.

We can see the mountains ahead where we are headed tomorrow.  The forecast is for cold and rain.  Keep your fingers crossed that the forecasts are wrong.  Maybe we are spoiled by all this sun, but doing our first rain and cold and mountains all on the same day is not what I have in mind!