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Monday March 31, 2008, 79 miles (127 km) - Total so far: 436 miles (702 km)
Today was quite the rollercoaster of highs and lows. Overall good though. Traffic was pretty bad all day, riding from Wickenburg to the East side of the Phoenix area.I'm staying in a pretty run down area at a lousy motel 6 so that's added an interesting dimension to the day.Highlights:
-tailwind and smooth roads most of the day.
-mailing unneeded stuff back to Alaska, now my load is much easier to deal with.
-nice neighborhoods to ride through.
-Adventure Cyclings great route selection! I never knew Pheonix had such nice roads and bike paths to ride on. It was a much different side to Phoenix than I'd seen before.
-smelling all the freshly blooming flowers all over town
-smelling freshly cut grass; ahh, summer.
-getting new tubes and a new rear tire! Wahoo! This new tire is called the Armidillo for it's toughness and I honestly think my flat tires will significantly decrease.
-getting gatorade and water from a stranger (detail below)
-catching up to the organized version of the trip I'm doing (for about $3500 you can pay adventure cycling to lead you, but you still have to carry all your own stuff.It seemed everyone had 4 fully loaded panniers and other things strapped here and there. I need to talk to someone who's actually done one of these trips to figure out the appeal..maybe I am missing something)
I tried talking to a few of them but I must have had axe murderer tatooed somewhere on my face because they didnt seem eager to converse with an outsider on a bike. The one guy who did briefly talk though wanted to know where all my stuff was and when I started. When I said "this is it, this is all I need, he looked shocked and added that I must be doing high mileage days to have covered the same amount of distance in 4 1/2 days less time. ---well yeah. And I'm carrying 8 pounds now vs his 80.
-getting to the end of my first route map and starting a new one. There are 7 total and I'll start another in El Paso, TX.
-meeting with a potential bride while on a bike trip. Do you think the IRS will allow me to write off the whole thing?
Lowpoints:
-flat tire at mile 18
-tons of traffic
-smog, pollution, noise, sprawl
-almost getting hit by an old guy who wasn't paying attention... Wait for this... Driving a golf cart.
-adventure cycling folks not wanting to chat. Come on, I'm lonely out here.
-a blood eruption in my nose; this actually scared me. I was about 8 miles from being done for the day, feeling great and just cruising when I felt this drip come out of my nose. I wiped it with my arm and my arm was covered in blood. I stopped the bike and it was like a leaky faucet for 3 or 4 minutes. Blood constantly coming out and dripping all over the place. I hung my head over a railing and proceeded to call Brook, freaked out hoping she could google "spontaneous nose bleed strenuous excercise hot" to find out how serious this was. No big deal she says. The bride I met with tonight also happened to be a family physician so she reccomended some saline nasal spray called Ocean Spray, which is working nicely.
-staying in this gross motel 6. It's dirt cheap, but now I know why.
-figuring out that my neighbor next door has set up her nightly office 10 inches on the other side of the wall. If anyone needs a prostitute, just come to the motel 6 in Mesa. Room 124 tonight is a leggy blond named ashley.
-gross pizza for dinner because there are no restaurants nearby.
So enough bad stuff. Here's the best story of the day.
I didn't really stop today at all for food or fluids (probably why I got a bloody nose). I was about to get on a 10ish mile section of bike path away from stores so I decided it would be a good time to stop and get more fluids. I was a little dehydrated and when that happens I often crave gatorade or juice. Usually its a 32oz bottle of fruit punch gatorade that I want the most. Well, I get about 400ft from the bike path and there has been no stores for miles on the route. I decide that I'll at least fill my empty water bottles if I can. When you're in a residential area there's always someone out watering or working on their truck that won't hesitate to fill up your water bottle if you ask nicely. So sure enough, a guy is out working in the yard... The hose is out, so I stop to ask if I can fill the bottles. He says "sure! Where ya headed?" I tell him and he says "wow that's far. Is water gonna be enough? I've got cold gatorade if you want some." I told him that was perfect and what does he pull out? No less than 2-32oz bottles of fruit punch gatorade!!! Wow. What luck do I have in scoring that. :D
Tomorrow will be better I think.
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