Thursday, July 3 - Day 7: Happy Dance

Today's ride was short, only 231 miles but the roads were very good.  The goal today was to get to Lindsey's (my daughter) place in Tempe, Arizona (suburb of Phoenix) and beat the heat!  Well, I made it here but the last part of the ride was pretty hot - more about that later.

Today's ride took me from Flagstaff, through Sedona and Jerome, and then Prescott before heading to the Phoenix area.  There were 3 great sections of road during this short tide.  The first was a canyon ride from outside Flagstaff all the way to Sedona.  The second great section was around the city of Jerome.  The final section was the section from Prescott to Prescott Valley.  If you Google Map the route on 89A and 89 through these towns, you will see what I mean!  Here is the Google Maps satellite view of the road into/out of Jerome.

I reached Wickenberg, which is about 1 hour west of Phoenix, about 10:30 Arizona time, which is another story.  I forgot the entire state of Arizona doesn't do day light savings time so when I crossed into Arizona yesterday, I didn't set my clock back 1 additional hour. So in my head (and on my watch) it was 11:30 and a good time to grab lunch and prepare for the heat I knew would be coming and this last stretch of the ride.

The final section of the ride to Phoenix was simply hot!  The temperature reading on the bike fluctuated between 99 and 108 during the ride. What made the ride even worse is I didn't realize how many stop lights there were on the route.  There were many and I must have stopped at over 90% of them.  I finally arrived, quickly unloaded the bike and took a cold shower.  That felt good!

There are 3 things I learned about the heat in the Phoenix area during this last short section of riding:

1. Don't fill your gas tank full and then let it sit in the sun! I filled up with gas before I went to have a quick lunch.  When I returned to the bike, I saw fuel leaking out from under my bike.  I thought "oh no - now what broke".  Then I realized I could hear the fuel bubbling in the gas tank!  The gas had expanded so much and got so hot it was bubbling over and out the overflow.  
2. At stop lights, people will stop so they are under a bridge for shade if they can rather than at the stop light!
3. When someone asks "How hot is it?"  I would say, "Hot enough to start a garage hauling truck on fire!".  On the interstate, there was semi truck with a load of garbage that had stopped and disconnected the trailer from the tractor and flames were coming out the top of the trailer.  Now that is when you know it is hot!

While I am visiting Lindsey, I also get to see my Grand Kitty - Beethoven.  He recently turned 2.  Here is a brand new, never before released picture of Beethoven.  He is my favorite Grand Kitty!

This evening we went out for dinner.  We were sitting outside at the restaurant (SanTan) and suddenly a sand storm blew into town!  This is the first time even Lindsey has experienced such a storm.  We continued to sit outside as the inside of the restaurant was packed and we figured it would soon blow over.  SanTan is a micro brewery and we each had a sampler of their beers so we covered them and thought we would wait out the storm.  Well, it lasted over 30 minutes.  We finally did get a table inside and got our food to enjoy.  By the time we were done eating, the storm had passed.  All these new desert experiences!

Tomorrow, Friday, July 4, 2014, will not include riding.  Our plans for the day are not yet set.  We haven't decided if we are going to see fireworks somewhere or not.  We may just spend the day relaxing and staying inside where it is cool.

This will be the turning around point for this trip.  When I leave here on Friday morning (before the heat starts to set in!), I will be heading to the eastern side of Arizona and then start heading back north.  I have 3 days planned to ride from here back to Colorado Springs and Pikes Peak and then to Kansas and back home.  So far on this trip, I have ridden 2,500 miles!