Circling the U.S. Chapter 65: Arizona's Southeastern Corner

Monday, December 30, 2019 - Friday, January 3, 2020

We left Christine and Steve and Tucson in good spirits, looking forward to camping two nights at Kartchner State Park, with a reasonable 50 miles ahead of us. But after eight miles that slipped by a headwind slammed into us and didn't let go of its grip. With a gradual 2000 feet of elevation gain and trucks and cars speeding beside us on the interstate, the day turned into an unmitigated disaster. 

At every exit we got off the highway, both to take a break and to try to catch a ride. But the interchanges came from nowhere and went nowhere. We quickly realized that the friendly pickup truck drivers were all home with their families for the holiday week. We had no choice but to keep going.

Previously when we've had tough headwind days we've been able to stay together. Even if I'm doing all the pulling, at least Rob has been able to keep a steady pace behind me. Not this time. It was probably the climbing coupled with the elevation. We started around 2400 feet. I would stop and wait for Rob. We'd start together and I'd try to ride slow but he just couldn't stay with me. I began stopping every mile to wait. It was too windy to play my whistle. It was just me on the interstate with the relentless traffic. 

We ate a snack leaning against a jersey barrier on an on ramp. At one point Rob said he felt dizzy so we put our bikes down and sat on the edge of the road while trucks and cars sped by. I got out some dried mangoes and raspberry infused dark chocolate and told Rob to eat it. We had about 8 more miles before we'd come to an exit with lodging. But we couldn't book ahead because neither of us had a phone that had a charge.

We pressed ahead and in three more miles came to an exit with a convenience store. I charged my phone, bought a chocolate milk for Rob, and booked a room at a Comfort Inn in Benson , 10 miles short of our planned destination. We had five more miles which, thankfully, were downhill, still into a headwind. I had my head down all day, hating life. I didn't take any pictures. Only the last few miles could I lift my head and look around and appreciate the beauty of the mountains surrounding us.

After 41 miles we arrived at the hotel so tired we lay sprawled on the beds, not even interested in taking a shower for about an hour. We cooked ramen noodles with hot water from the coffee maker and munched on all our snack food, including hummus and pretzels and a red pepper. That was dinner.

Our budget got blown away with the headwinds. The Comfort Inn cost $100 but that didn't include the $35 we spent to reserve a campsite at the state park. We could have stayed at a Motel 6 for a lot less, but there are times when I just can't face a Motel 6. This was one of them.

It's amazing what a good night's sleep will do. Rob looks pretty happy, doesn't he? The last ten miles to Kartchner State Park went smoothly. We still had some elevation to gain, but the wind was gone and so was the traffic, as we'd left the interstate behind.

We did enjoy our evening at the Comfort Inn in Benson; it was money well spent. On Tuesday, December 31, we arrived at Kartchner Caverns State Park by 11, with time for lunch and a 2 1/2 mile hike before our cavern tour at 2:00.

Following are pictures from our short hike. There are no pictures from the cave as they are not allowed.

One of the seven kinds of cholla, loaded with fruit.

So many people suggested that we visit Kartchner Caverns that we felt we shouldn't miss it. Rob thought it was wonderful. It was worth the visit, but not really that much different from other caves we've visited. The history of the cave's discovery and how it has been kept free of outside contaminants is fascinating.

The campground was lovely. Our next door neighbors, Trish and Steve, invited us to come over for drinks around their propane campfire. Visiting with them was at least a hundred times better than sitting in the dark alone in our campsite. They were both visiting from Phoenix, getting away from the New Year's fireworks which make their dogs go nuts. We enjoyed red wine and great conversation (not everyone in Phoenix is politically conservative) and a warm fire. By 9:00 we were ready for bed and, although the campground was full, there were clearly no New Years Eve revelers present. We had a quiet night.

Then, on the first day of the New Year, we left our pristine campground for tacky touristy Tombstone, Arizona, a town trying to look like it might have looked in the 1800s when men roamed the streets with loaded guns and weren't afraid to use them. Today it's a place where guns are treated like toys and men come to relive their boyhood dreams of becoming a cowboy. 

If you are a student of western history, you might know that Tombstone was the site of a famous gunfight between supposed good guys and bad guys, the Shootout at the OK Corral. There have been movies made about it. As far as I could tell, the good guys weren't all that good.

We had great fun riding 30 miles to Tombstone, cruising along at 13 mph.

Throughout the town we saw men dressed up in old timey western garb. It turns out that they are actors for the five different shows that reenact the famous gunfight. Unfortunately the fellow at the visitors center only told us about one of the shows. We didn't know until after we'd gone to one that I thought was third rate that we'd had a choice.

We also found out that they used to have gun fights right on the main street but had to stop when one of the cowboys came directly from a shooting range, was late, and forgot that his gun still had a bullet in it. He shot one of the other cowboys in the leg. What boys with guns will do...

The actors hang out in the street encouraging the tourists to come to their show. I stopped to talk to one of them. He was retired and had come to Tombstone from North Carolina last spring to play cowboy because,, "It was a bucket list thing." His wife was going to come with him, but she had to stay behind to help out one of her sons or, as he put it, she had to enable her son's bad choices. It didn't sound like she was going to be joining him any time soon and it sure didn't sound like he had any plans to leave Tombstone where his smile and enthusiasm indicated that he was having great fun playing cowboy shoot-em-up. 

After going to one of the gunfight shows and exploring the collection of artifacts we wandered up and down the main street. Someone had told us that the silver mine tour was an interesting thing to do but neither of us seemed sufficiently motivated to spend the money or time on that. In retrospect we probably should have, because there wasn't much else to do in town and we didn't have the time or energy to get on our bikes and get to Bisbee, 30 miles and a hill climb away. We killed time at a bar that had wifi until it was late enough for dinner, then went to Big Nose Kate's Saloon which surprisingly had a very good vegie burger.

We camped right in Tombstone, at the Wells Fargo RV Park where the RVs were stacked so closely to one another that there wasn't even room for a picnic table between them. You could shake hands with your neighbor through the windows. I asked a fellow out walking his dog in the morning if he was there on vacation or if he lived there full time. He said he was on vacation, staying in town a couple weeks. I asked, "What is the appeal of Tombstone?"

He said, "I guess it's that I grew up playing cowboys. I enjoy the whole cowboy theme of the place."

I said, "So have you been to all the gunfight shows?"

He said, "I've been to three of them. We'll go to one more today." 

I asked if some of the shows were better than the others and he said they were pretty good except for the one we'd gone to. "That one was the worst." 

The riding on Thursday, January 2 - 51 miles - was terrific. A tailwind gave us a boost all day.

We climbed 2000 feet to Bisbee. Most of the climbing came during the last few miles, when it got steep enough that, while waiting for Rob, I had enough time to learn a new tune on my whistle - Haste to the Wedding.

We even passed patches of snow at around 6000 feet.

Then we had a steep downhill through a tunnel that was rather scary. It was cold enough to be concerned about ice. It was wet along the side of the road inside the tunnel and the traffic was pretty fast. Coming out of the tunnel the entire road was wet but I didn't want to find out if it was black ice. I kept my hands lightly on both brakes, keeping my speed down until I hit dry road.

Bisbee sits in the mountains at 5200 feet. An old mining town, Rob and I agreed that it reminded us of Georgetown in Colorado.

The entire town of Bisbee is a historic landmark, populated with old and new hotels, inns, restaurants, and art galleries. We stopped in the old Copper Queen Hotel and were both surprised to find out that we could get a room that night for $79 plus tax. After that Rob didn't stop campaigning to spend the night in Bisbee. But I had already made up my mind that we were going to capture some more miles that day and I wasn't going to be dissuaded.

Even though Rob's campaign to stay overnight in Bisbee failed, we enjoyed spending a couple hours walking around town in the cold and windy weather. We stopped in a cafe for tea and treats - carrot cake for Rob and flourless chocolate cake for me.

On our way out of town we saw the remnants of the old copper mine. What a shame. We could only imagine the beauty that was carved away.

After Bisbee we rode downhill 1500 feet to the nothing town of Douglas and an evening in a Motel 6 (nothing like the Copper Queen Hotel). The riding to Douglas couldn't have been better. It took us just over an hour and a half to ride 26 miles. The scenery was stunning with mountains off in the distance on every side.

This would be our last night in Arizona. We had long stretches of no services and small and smaller towns to look forward to.

On Friday morning, January 3, the temperature was supposedly in the twenties when we set out from Douglas so we bundled up. But it didn't feel that cold and we quickly started shedding clothing. 

Our route was very straightforward - stay on Route 80 for 50 miles until we get to the little town of Rodeo, just over the border in New Mexico.

How do you like that portajohn adding just the right focal point to this expansive scene? It sits there, on a dirt driveway, surrounded by nothing. I couldn't figure it out. Wouldn't cowboys just do there thing wherever they happened to be when the urge hit?

We have very deep conversations during our lunch breaks -
Rob: We're out in the middle of nowhere."
Me: "We're somewhere."
Rob: "Would you just agree with me for once?"

If we were out in the middle of nowhere then so was the border patrol dude sitting just over yonder from where we were eating our lunch. See anyplace where I could take a pee in private? Maybe he couldn't see me when I squatted down next to the culvert next to the road. Or maybe he could see me and that was the high point of his day, a story to bring home to the wife. We saw these SUVs sitting alongside the road everywhere. What a boring job.

The riding was not difficult, a couple gradual uphills followed by gradual downhills. The landscape is now pretty scruffy, still surrounded by mountains, but it is getting a little boring. Rob said, "If this is what Texas is going to be like then I'm all for skipping it."

We've been discussing the option of renting a car in El Paso and driving to San Antonio. West Texas with long stretches of nothing and roads with rough chip seal, sounds like no fun. And we're worried about headwinds making long days impossible. If we rent a car we could take a detour to Big Bend National Park and have time to cycle the Texas Hill Country Loop before meeting up with our kids for a weekend in San Antonio at the end of January.

We found out that there is a phrase that describes some cyclists - EFM. It stands for Every F____ Mile. We were kicked out of that club back in Ontario when we hitched a ride to Sault Ste. Marie. And any hopes of our membership being reinstated were dashed when we took the train from St. Paul to East Glacier, skipping all of North Dakota.

When people ask us where we biked from we say New Hampshire. And then they say, "You didn't bike here all the way from New Hampshire, did you?" And I say, "Mostly." And I explain about the train. And the response is usually, "Good idea."

Maybe skipping West Texas would get the same response. We had plenty of time to make that decision. First we had to get across New Mexico.