Tuesday, April 5
Got into
Holbrook last night after 8:30 and we were set up before 10. We tried to be stealthy because there were
two other tent sites occupied. So we
unloaded and parked the bikes without turning them on, which would have totally
crashed the silence of the night. And we
got the trailer set up for sleeping with only a few loud noises.
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The leaves on
the trees were full out in Picacho…the leaves here in Holbrook are in the
beginning of the process. Some trees
still have just buds and some have leaves that are just unfurling. Elevation change makes a difference…at about
5000 ft now. Temp was a little cool last
night, relative to what we were experiencing in Tucson. The day is warming up very nicely, though.
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Thankfully, I’m able
to get online in this campground while sitting in the trailer. Last night, I sent an email to another source
I found online who might help me with my Ghost Bike question…who is Rafe? I wrote:
Upon leaving Tucson
today, heading out SR 77, we came across a white bike near Oracle.
We stopped and thought it was just a roadside memorial until I
googled 'white bike near Oracle, AZ'. I was searching to find some
information on 'Rafe', the name on the bike. That search led me to ghost
bikes....and that's what I think we found. However I can't find any
official recognition that that's what it is. My question to you: Is
it a ghost bike and do you know anything about a cyclist named Rafe involved in
an accident at that location? It's a haunting memorial.
Here’s the
response I received this morning from Bicycle Tucson—Tucson’s Two-Wheeled News
Source:
It is a ghost bike and unfortunately
there are many around Tucson. Pretty tragic. It provided a link to an article from the Arizona
Daily Star, but I was unable to cut and paste from that site. I did find another site, the-scientist.com,
which reported his death using the Daily Star as a reference. This is what was reported: University
of Arizona (UA) marine ecologist Raphael “Rafe” Sagarin was killed
Thursday (May 28) when a pickup truck swerved partially off the road and hit
Sagarin from behind while he was on his bicycle, the Arizona Daily Star reported.
He was 43.
The driver,
Gary Colvin, was allegedly impaired at the time and was charged with
manslaughter.
Sagarin was leading a project at UA’s
Biosphere 2 to create a living model of the Gulf of California. He was also an
expert in adaptability and would consult with the American Red Cross, the US
Department of Defense, and large corporations “on how they can unleash the
natural power of adaptability to survive and thrive in an unpredictable world,”
according to his website. There
was more to the article but this satisfies my need to know about Rafe.
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A woman riding a Harley trike came into the campground this
morning before we left for the afternoon.
She’s retired, from Florida and didn’t want to just waste away sitting
on her couch, so she’s traveling on her bike.
She tried to get others to ride with her but they just wouldn’t totally
commit, so she got to a point where she said “I’m going, I can’t keep waiting.” Started last September, slowly making her way
across the country. She took a couple of
months off to return home (January and February), leaving her bike stored at a
friend’s house in New Mexico. She doesn’t
really have a time table and says she’s having a great time by herself. I admire her gumption….don’t know that I
would ride cross country by myself. But
I certainly understand being in a situation where your heart, mind and soul are
telling you to do something but you have no one to do it with. It’s then that you have to decide if you’ll let
that stop the dream.
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Today’s ride was all about me standing on a corner in
Winslow, Arizona!! I put it on the ‘must
do’ list when we were planning this trip.
Winslow is about 35 miles to the west of Holbrook. Started out taking the road less traveled and really,
it was a nice ribbon of road…until it turned to gravel. Then we headed for the highway to get us
there. Got confused a time or two, but
eventually found the corner we were looking for. After we were done, I took us on one of the
craziest routes to get back to the highway.
I could see the highway….I just couldn’t get us to an on-ramp of the
highway. We circled through residential areas, we
cruised past the high school, we kept turning in the direction of the highway…but
it just wasn’t happening. It was one of
those “so close and yet so far away” scenarios. We’d stop and Kim would say ‘Well, let’s just
go up a little ways to see where this road goes.’ That happened a couple times, but nothing was
looking familiar….then we came up to the intersection of the exit where we
originally got off the highway, but we were coming at it from the opposite way.
I don’t know how we managed that, but, hallelujah! we found an entrance to the
highway!!
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There is an actual corner in Winslow that takes its cue from
the Eagles song ‘Take It Easy’. There is a
statue by a lamp post and a sign above the post that says ‘Standin'on the corner’ and the building behind it has a mural of the reflection in a furniture store window of a girl passing by in a flatbed Ford. Not only that but there are windows above that are part of the mural, too….an eagle sits in the corner of one window and, faces unseen, there is an embracing couple in another of the windows. It’s all very cleverly and artistically done. There’s even a real flatbed Ford sitting along the sidewalk. It’s a popular corner….in the short time we were there, there was a constant flow of people of all ages taking pictures and posing for pictures. There are still tributes
to the late Glenn Frey being put in front of the statue, also. Various songs from The Eagles provides the
soundtrack to a visit to the corner, thanks to the store across the
street. I had
my camera on a tripod and the self-timer set so we could take a ‘family’ photo…I
usually have it set to take 3 pictures. Push the button…hurry to get in place…as the camera started taking pictures, “Take It Easy” started
playing. I consider
that to be superb timing! J
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We wanted to be
back in plenty of time for Kim to make some adjustments that had to be done
during daylight. On the way back from
Winslow, it looked like the sky just wasn’t going to play nice tonight for
stargazing…a layer of thin wispy clouds was moving in overhead. But Kim did what he needed to with the scope
setup, then set about making supper.
However, once darkness really set in, the clouds moved on and the stars
popped out…Kim sprang into action to get the scope set up. He said he’s feeling a good vibe out there. J
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