Another Highway Ride

December 20, 2020

This porta potty came at just the right time for me! And it was clean! We saw several of these purple potties along the highway today and wondered who they were for. Maybe the border patrol?

It's kind of hard to see, but there is a home behind this fence. We passed a number of these properties today in Whetstone. Again, a mystery!

There is a border patrol check point on Highway 90 between Benson and Sierra Vista. When going through on the bike, we were always just waved through and the officer gave us a friendly "have a nice day"!

This is looking south toward Sierra Vista on Highway 90. On the other side of those mountains is Mexico. Notice the side shoulder. But it would soon cause our downfall.

Another flat on our rear tire! One of the issues to deal with on these highways that have lots of semi truck traffic. Don had it taken care of very quickly.

Yup, here's the culprit - a tiny piece of wire from tire debris along the road.

Today was sunnier and a bit warmer out as we watched the spectacular sunrise over the mountains. This park is situated so that the mountains are on the west behind us while we have long views of the San Pedro River Valley to the east. That gives us great sunrises, but not so much sunsets like we had at Lost Dutchman.

By 11 am it had risen into the 50's so we headed south onto Highway 90 to Whetstone and turned west onto Highway 82. Our nice shoulder on 90 changed to a much narrower one on 82 and there still was lots of traffic. They moved around us ok, but it wasn't a great road.

After gently climbing for about 4 mils we stopped at a handy porta potty that was located at a turnoff to a custom home development. We had no idea why it was there but appreciated the location and the fact that it was clean.

While we were stopped, we went ahead and ate our lunch, even though we had no place to sit. We did like looking at the nice homes.

After eating, we continued west for a bit further before turning around and retracing our route back to camp except when we got to Whetstone. We took a few residential roads through this small community to avoid the busy road for a couple of miles. Some of the homes were quite nice but had chainlink fencing topped with barbed wire around their properties. Maybe to discourage illegals?

Eventually we had to return to Highway 90 and turned north where we passed through a border patrol check station. They just waved us through and wished us a nice day. Hmmmm - that was sure a different attitude than we received when we encountered them on the Southern Tier in Texas.

Everything was going well until a few miles before camp where we had a flat on the rear tire. It was caused by a small piece of wire which considering the debris on the shoulder, wasn't unexpected.

Don had the tube patched and tire back on the bike in less than 15 minutes which is so different than on our Screamer tandem. That bike has much wider, thicker tires which take a while to get off and on.

The rest of the ride was uneventful and we were soon back at the trailer by 3 pm. Overall, we had enjoyed the ride with its expansive desert and mountain views. We even spotted some Swainson's hawks perched on top of dead century plant blooms.

The afternoon had warmed up nicely and we spent the next couple of hours sitting outside and reading. But by the time the sun started to set, it began to cool off quickly.

So headed inside for dinner and then our usual movie. We had brought lots of movies and episodes of TV shows that Don had purchased before we left. TV reception is minimal at best in these parks with usually only one station that comes in clearly. Lately we've been catching up on episodes of Deep Space 9.

Today's ride: 31 miles (50 km)
Total: 182 miles (293 km)

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