I would say Phoenix is in our rear view mirrors, but those mirrors snapped off a few hundred miles back. The point is we made it around the concrete jungle!
We woke up early and did a much abbreviated version of our morning routine in order to get moving.
After passing by a casino on the eastern edge of the city we headed due north for a spell.
The casino situation in this state is hilarious. God forbid you are an Indian reservation inconveniently located far from major population centers. Your reservation is then doomed to poverty that is all too common on reservations. Similarly, God forbid you are a white, black, asian, or hispanic American with dreams of operating a casino. You should have thought about that before being born. It’s the least capitalistic system imaginable. Anyways, nobody asked for my opinion.
Once we turned north at the casino we entered the Fountain Hills suburb and were greeted with beautiful estates and immaculate cars speeding past us. We both commented that this was the most opulent wealth we had seen since leaving San Diego months ago.
This wealthy suburb then dumped us out into a beautiful nature preserve, the Phoenix Sonoran Preserve. It wasn’t as scenic as the national forest of the past few days, but considering the extreme proximity to the city we were both mightily impressed with the Phoenix Parks and Recreation department. Other cyclists swarmed around us on the Sonoran Preserve. It’s easy to see why this place is so popular with excellent bike lanes and pleasant views.
The next road “West Carefree Highway” was a pleasant ride with a pleasant name. That is, of course, excusing the brief dust storm that knocked us both around before moving on.
We ended up camping close to the Carefree Highway. The road was fairly quite. We were both too tired from the day to give much of a hoot about another night so close to the road.
For those interested in the mechanical situation of Ryan’s bike-
We called around 20 bike shops in Phoenix and nobody carries the specific part needed. We settled on ordering the part to the post office in Blythe, California so it should be waiting for us in a few days.
Route info for interested readers:
We turned right off of highway 87 onto E Shea Blvd, then right onto Frank Lloyd Wright. At the 52, we turned onto a bike path that went from paved to easy dirt and rode until it connected back to the main roads at Cave Creek Road. We took a left off of Cave Creek onto East Sonoran Desert Drive for a few miles, then right onto North Valley Parkway and a quick right onto N 27th Drive. Then it was a left onto Carefree Highway for the rest of the day.
There and Back Again 