Sunday – Scottsdale, Arizona

Today ended with a beer and bullshit session, this was after surviving the meeting with Dangerous Dave

I slept very well last night, but was woken by a drummer, really it sounded like one, until I realised it was a woody woodpecker banging on a cactus, lol. The first time I have heard one, but still not seen one, not to recognise anyway.

After some breakfast I started to pack up then got side tracked with a lengthy chat with Brenda, my neighbour. She is from Oregon and having a bit of time out for a few months, good on her, I may see her again up that way later on in my travels.

I eventually got up to the visitors centre about 9am where I did the small nature walk around the building. I mentioned yesterday about the drug runners and illegals etc, well this centre is a memorial to a young park ranger who was killed doing his duty. Here are some info boards.

A bit of a sad start really, but after that a short walk around the nature trail.

There is also a small pond, which is a replica environment for s small guppy type fish, only found in the wild in one place, this was built just in case the original system failed. It was fun watching the small fishes being very protective, in the middle is a rock, you can see a blue speck on the upper edge, this fish has turned blue to attract females, but is harassing anyone else that comes close.

On the way in to the visitors centre I had seen this Heritage Harley chained up to a post, now when I get outside I see this chap doing some repairs.

I had a chat and met Dangerous Dave and a bit later on his friend Guy. Apparently, yesterday evening these two had done the exact same ride I did around that rough track. Now, give these blokes some respect, these are not your average shiny Harley, polish it for 6 days and ride for 1 hour type bikes, these are for riding. Half way through the ride, his bike stopped working from all the rough roads, he thinks it is the coil and is about to rip the one out of his mates to prove that fact. The funny thing was, they used that chain on the ground and Guy towed Dave out the last 10 miles or so, Dave reckons it was so funny he was nearly crying, I am not sure Guy was that amused. 🙂 They towed to here and just chained it up for the night.

Anyway, good on them, they are real travellers and were great to talk to, I hope they got the bike worked out OK.

After that I headed north again, past the border control people twice, the 2nd time I was asked to show my passport as I had an accent, duh! Got away with that, still no insurance remember and came upon these funny hills/walls around the town of Ajo, I think they are the remnants of mining activity. The soil was multi coloured, but on the other side of the highway, the hills were all white.

I eventually found a shady tree near one of the bombing ranges so I took the time for a break and a snack, just up the road was an airbase with some old jets outside the entrance.

From there it was basic roads and onwards to Scottsdale where I had planned to meet an internet person called Netfather, of course this meant negotiating roadwork’s and 6 lane freeways to get there, but in the end I did, after a few phone calls for directions etc and we were soon having a gabfest and a beer.

We were going to have a BBQ dinner, but as Netfather comes from New York, Philadelphia region, he talked me into something called a Philly Cheeze Steak, this is thinly sliced steak on a longish bun, with cheese all over it, you can have it ‘wid’ or ‘widout’ oinion and sauce etc. I had ‘wid’ onion. It was very nice and I would certainly have one again, thanks for that m8.

There is a bit of a story behind this shop, apparently this has been tried before but because the local water has a different taste, the buns and stuff do not come out right, so what this shop does is to import the water from Philly and this fixes the problem.

Anyway, we had some more beer, some more bullshit talk and watched a great DVD of the Aussie Cover band for Pink Floyd live in London, excellent way to spend the evening. We tried to call another net friend called 340, up in Canada, but he was not in, so eventually I left a coy message and left it until tomorrow, hahaha. It was not a late night, but I was tired by the end anyway and not quite sober 🙂

Day – 166 miles and 267 km
Trip – 6,061 miles and 9,754 km

Cheers
TravellingStrom
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