Friday – Gila Bend, Arizona

I was up early, but there was no real need to be, so I finished off the book I was reading, one more thing not to take with me 🙂 After a great breakfast I finished packing the bike and got ready to leave, I set up a group photo, but Bailey was not paying attention to the camera, he was looking at me telling him to look over there 🙂

Craig and Lisa, I must say I enjoyed my time here, you made me feel very welcome and it was great to get the bike sorted with no pressure at all 🙂 Thanks a lot, I hope to see you down home one day when I can return the favour 🙂 🙂 The first stop for me was the copy centre down the road a bit, here I got printed a bunch of documents to hand over to the border people and whoever else wants them.

After that I just had to negotiate some traffic chaos before heading east on hwy94, the scenic route rather than the interstate.

It was warming up nicely by now, but it was fun running through the hills.

I saw this ‘mirror’ tree, it is quite interesting how two different parts of the same tree grew opposite each other.

A few more miles of winding roads and eventually I came to a railroad bridge, I stopped under a tree for a rest, it was becoming very warm indeed, here I called Craig as I had forgotten the name of this place I was going to look at, it is called Desert View Tower. He advised me to stay on the 94 and look for a sign that said In Ko Pah.

Up the road a ways I saw these figures near a building, one of them had a Danger sign on its chest, I am assuming that because of the Mexican border proximity, it is to do with illegal’s, but it may be for anyone I guess 😕

You can see the border fence in the next photo, there was also a lot of guard vehicles around as well.

I went through a small town where I saw this old building next to a newish school, it may have been the old one, but there was no info near it.

Then on past some workers in the fields, that must be hot work and also a chopper working on a power line, a dangerous job that!

I finally saw the sign that I was looking for and it took me to the tower where I chatted with the bloke there for a while before paying the $3 to go look around, it was quite interesting. He said there is not that much traffic nowadays due to the interstate, the killer of a lot of small towns and businesses which is the price of progress I guess!

There were even plants managing to make a home amongst the rock and heat, tough plants them cos it was stinking hot!!!

After this little interlude I rode though some nice boulder strewn hills before descending onto the desert floor, where it started to warm up a bit! 😦

But, there was irrigation here and canals which allowed the area to grow mile after mile of hay.

I stopped for lunch at a freeway exit for my favourite food, yep, Subway 🙂 Before heading through more desert where the temp really started to soar, I was keeping the fluids up, but it was like riding in an oven at times.

A bit more desert before I got into the state border town of Yuma where I fuelled up and soaked my clothes under the tap for some cooling effect.

There were a few hills to climb but nothing of note and the temp kept on climbing.

I recognised this area as I had ridden though here in April sometime, I remembered Dateland anyway, just a small oasis in the middle of nowhere.

I had to stop at a border control inspection site, but they waved me through after asking a few simple questions, probably felt pity for me in this heat 🙂

I was not far now from my days destination of Gila Bend(Heela bend), I saw the appearance of Saguaro cactus on the plains, also some large sheds which may have been cattle feedlots, it smelt like it anyway 🙂

I stopped under a freeway overpass in the shade for a rest, so I was not in an urgent frame of mind when looking for a room. The town was just up the road and it seemed to be a crabby home for some 🙂

I rode around the town to see what was there, not a great deal by the looks, but it did have a fair share of motels, for the snowbirds I guess. I eventually picked one which turned out quite cheap and reasonable and fired up the aircon quick smart!!

After a welcoming shower I hit the town, 😆 Well, the bar that looked like an air raid shelter anyway, and it was very quiet, but I tried a Mexican beer, I might as well get my taste buds used to them, it was OK 🙂 The bar was doing a roaring trade, NOT!

I stuck around for a bit, watching the baseball and chatting with Victoria the bar lady. The bar was pretty basic, it needed some TLC and some paint and a cleaner. It turns out to be the only bar here now, there was 6 at one stage, but the interstate killed this town too. I met some cowboys a bit later, this is Rick and Paul, I asked them if they had checked their boots, that got a strange look before a laugh 🙂

That is Victoria, she was interesting to chat with and also a bit later Jeannie and Tony came in for a while, a pleasant evening as it turns out and I was going to stay another day so I could get some blog and study done

Day – 299 miles and 481km
Trip – 37,890 miles and 60,978 km

Cheers
TravellingStrom

USACanadaMexico

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