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Day 7- Mesa AZ

 I woke up this morning with a swollen Frankenstein face going on. My eyes were almost swollen shut and I felt very congested. I was wondering if I would even be able to ride. Once I got up and started moving around and ate something everything started going back to normal. I’m not sure what it’s from but I’m glad it’s done. And no, there is no picture to go with this paragraph.

Today was a 75 miler with high traffic but relatively good roads. We got out of Gila Bend early. Truthfully I didn’t really feel like riding at all, so I had to come up with a strategy to get me through the day. I broke the day up into seven 10 mile rides. This meant  I stopped just about once an hour. I rode with Sue and we made good time and chatted about the problems of the world. You can rest comfortably that we have solved most of them.

One thing that stood out to me today is that there are huge cacti in Arizona. I did not expect them to be so tall. For reference in this photo, I am only 5’3.



We hit Maricopa for lunchtime and were glad to drop the bikes for a while. My seat is not comfortable. We’d written about 20 miles on route 238 with no shoulder and lots of traffic. Enough drivers were stupid to make it a little scary, and F bombs were dropped.


From Maricopa out to Mesa things lightened up and we thoroughly enjoyed the Chandler Paseo trail and the Heritage Trail which took us directly into Gilbert. Here’s where the wheels fell a bit off the bus. The directions told us to go right when we left the trail so we’d go through a little tourist area before making us go left towards the hotel suit. Sue and I got turned around and added a few miles. Hey — adventure cycling — how about NOT giving us a sightseeing tour at mile 70!

And now we are tucked into a Super8 that’s behind a car wash. It’s hot as hell, but the pool is green so it’s a no go .It’s more than a little sketchy. We took a look at the TripAdvisor reviews and the titles of the first three are:

Drug Palace

Don’t

Drug Den and Whore House.

We did see some interesting interesting characters, but truth be told we had a very good quiet nights sleep and enjoy the rest day for Day eight.


Comments

  1. AnonymousOctober 2, 2022 at 5:42 PM

    Amazed at every blog post Lydia!!- Gari

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousOctober 2, 2022 at 8:04 PM

    You crack me up. You have such a way with words. You really paint a picture. I’m going to bed with a smile on my face. Debbie

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousOctober 3, 2022 at 4:55 AM

    Lydia, I also am inspired by how you took a big task and broke it down into small parts. That's the teacher in you coming out. Lastly, aren't' you taller than 5'3"? If not, you definitely present as taller. I love reading your posts.

    ReplyDelete
  4. AnonymousOctober 3, 2022 at 7:02 PM

    Impressive Lydia! XOXO Pauline

    ReplyDelete

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