A Visitor!

Kelly flew in yesterday afternoon and as I mentioned that gave us the opportunity to give Marty a full rest day. It also gave me the chance to bomb around in the hills out here without 45 pounds of stuff on my bike.

But before I get to that, I can't tell you how good it was to see her... really I cannot even begin. She is the greatest.

As Marty said, I took off from the campground (we posted some pitcures from when the sun went down on the rocks - incredible) at around 8 am. Because we went off the track to get to the camping, I decided to take shorter route back to Rte 60. Of course the first couple of miles of this road was unpaved! Oddly, this was not a disaster - 30mm tires are pretty versatile.

Then it was onto Rt 60 east into Tonto National Park and onto Superior, the home of the World's Smallest Museum! And... not much else. Reminded me of some Vermont towns I have been to... but with really good breakfast burritos.

Remember the Chamber of Commerce woman? Well once again, her words of wisdom were a tad off. She described a virtual "tunnel of death" that you have to ride through to get out of Superior that was 1 mile long straight uphill, two lanes, no shoulder, etc.

As I ate my breakfast, someone asked (and by the way, this a really cool part of the trip, people are almost always really interested and friendly) where I was going. I told him and we chatted about the rest of my ride and the TUNNEL OF DEATH, As he paid his bill, he offered to put my stuff in the back of his truck and drive me through - what the heck?

You guessed it... a pretty well lit 200 yards of three lanes of traffic. Better safe than sorry.

What she should have told me about was the upcoming riding through places like "Devils Canyon" and "Top of the World" and the total lack of shoulder in many spots and the copper mining trucks whizzing past... but nothing beats a good TUNNEL OF DEATH story!

It was rather dicey both uphill and down. I was very glad not to have my trailer. At one point they were blasting so the whole road was closed temporarily in both directions - the nice worked let me fly down the mountain all alone for a mile or two.

Then I hit the end of Tonto and the beginning of mining country - thank God for National Parks.

I got to Globe and waited for Kelly and Marty. They found an urgent care place and got Marty some help and some advice. The good news is he can keep going.

So we are planning several short days in a row due to the terrain and the need to slowly bring his knee back. Hopefully that plan will work. Might cost a couple days, but oh well.

Did I mention how great it was to see Kelly?

Jake