Day 20 The road to Phoenix

In the morning Steve handed me a piece of paper with handwritten recommendations of places in the USA that he thought I’d enjoy along with a chemical heat pack to use should I get caught out in the cold again.

The radar said “go now or get very wet”. I packed, picked a southerly route and departed, posting would have to wait.

A mildly embarrassing diversion to fill up with gas at a Propane station, soon corrected, and I was on my way running the gauntlet of rainstorms, not entirely successfully but at least prepared, not least prepared. I stopped in Show Low to avail myself of a Burger King breakfast and free WIFI to write and upload yesterday’s post and the clouds cleared. I dallied too long, curse their meagre bandwidth, and had to shelter while another squall blew through before heading on down route 60. There was an option to branch off onto the 260 to Phoenix there through the Apache-Sitgreaves National forest (presumably the Apache were there before Captain Lorenzo Sitgreaves so get top billing) but the rain was coming that way so I bailed and continued on the the 60 to be rewarded by the Salt River Canyon.

Topping up the tank in Globe and choosing Phoenix over Tucson, which would have left me no non-interstate routes that stayed in the USA and I didn’t fancy my chances with homeland security, what with the crisis and all. Up out of the Salt River Valley to find the globe spring cactus bristles like stubble. The road into Phoenix was an uneventful, neigh boring, trawl through neighbourhoods restricted to 45 mph and frequently punctuated by stop lights. Perhaps I should relax the no-interstate rule in the ‘burbs.

Eventually she started to overheat, the sun was blazing down despite the threatening clouds to the North and I’d shed my cold mountain wet weather gear. Pulling in for a break, violating a number of traffic regulations and earning some shouted advice from an offended motorist, apparently those double lines mean something. The Guzzi wouldn’t start again, the starter gear clattering ineffectively, I waddled astride the burdened beast and bumped her in second so that I could seek shade and book a motel. The Ramada had a pool and I’d been fantasising about a dip for a number of days, not far away we had a winner.

I indulged beneath the dark clouds and implanted palm trees. It was graduation night at the Ramada the night before, two guys told me from the adjacent hot-tub, I imagined Spring Break like antics but all was quiet today. Having retreated to my own hot tub in a room larger than most NYC apartments to stew with a cold beer I ventured forth to ‘Rogue’ allegedly edgy music bar a couple of blocks away, now apparently closed for good, just my luck. ‘Philly’s Sports Bar & Grill’ provided a special steak, two oversized steins of Lagunitas and the company of Ron, a painter and decorator from Greenville NC. Ron didn’t like Phoenix (pop 1.6 million) but was a big fan of Monti Python and Red Dwarf, his wife watched Eastenders on PBS, and thought that San Diego was a very liberal city, I’ll find out soon enough.