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I went to bed shortly after midnight
(Mountain Time) last night and Kim stayed up later than I did playing with the
telescope and then processing the images.
We woke up later than we expected to find the day off to a warm sunny
start…and that meant that we didn’t have time to take a 3 mile walk and get the
necessary shower before church, which starts at 11. Oh, well, since I’m not a fan of walking in
the midday heat, an evening walk it will be.
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A nearby couple was having trouble with the
battery to their pop-up camper last night.
Kim helped him out with some knowledge, a battery charger and extension
cord. They had to be in Phoenix today
and would return the charger and cord before they pulled out…Kim’s knowledge
was free for the man to keep or disregard. 😏
I returned to our site this morning to find
a lost looking man walking through, looking quizzically at the trailer and in
the windows of the truck. I greeted him
and inquired if I could help him with anything.
He was looking for a man who helped him last night. “Oh,
that’s my husband Kim. He’s up at the
clubhouse right now if you want to talk to him.” No, he just wanted to return the stuff,
thank Kim for helping them and gave me a card telling me that if we’re ever in
Belleville, MI, there’s a free meal with dessert waiting for us. Then he looked around and hesitantly asked where we stayed. When I indicated the trailer, he seemed
confused so I opened the door and let him look at our set-up as I explained how
Kim has modified the bike trailer to suit our camping needs. First thing he wanted to know was if we had
air…”Well, we have a top vent and a
fan. Also have an electric heater for
cool evenings. We use the cook stove out
there on the picnic table. It all works
rather well for us.” By the look on his face, his wife might be
hearing about our unorthodox slightly bohemian way of camping on their way to
Phoenix. I acknowledge that it wouldn’t work for everyone but it suits us for
now.
Then this evening two women came over
separately to check out the trailer. One
woman was out walking her dogs and stopped to talk about the bikes and
eventually that talk turned to the trailer.
When I offered to let her see the inside, Debbie, the woman right next
to us, heard and came scurrying over to take a peek too. She’d been curious as to how we had it
outfitted. Debbie used to have a similar
set up without the motorcycle component.
Debbie whole heartedly embraced the ‘bucket as a toilet’ idea. Not sure about the other woman, though. 😊
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Debbie has an interesting story…she’s
recently retired from Ford (worked the Mustang line) and decided to travel, something
she couldn’t do when working. So she
saved through the years and after retirement sold everything she didn’t need and
bought a 35 foot trailer which is now her home; she pulls it with a Ford
350. We’ve encountered couples who have
done the same thing but Debbie is doing this on her own…by herself...alone! She’s
been divorced for 7 years and has no kids. She’s been in Picacho for 4 months and is
leaving for the Yuma area either tomorrow or Tuesday…said that California is
unseasonably chilly right now so she’ll stay in Winter Haven ‘til the end of
March and then will strike out for the west coast. I admire her courageous spirit.
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I got my cycle endorsement later in life
than most people do…I was 51, so I’ve accepted that I will not get the 20 to 30
years of riding pleasure that some of my riding buddies have. That’s okay, I’ll keep riding as long as I
can. Those first couple of years as riding
season approached these thoughts would wander through my mind…Will I remember what to do? Will I still be able to handle the bike? and What
if I can’t handle it…is this the year that I have to give it up? Then I would get on the bike and the worries
would subside.
This year has been no different, especially
since I’m on the brink of a rather significant sounding birthday. And while ‘they’ say that age is just a state of
mind, let’s face it, no matter how much of a youthful outlook a person has, 60
is not 25, either physically or mentally.
Zeus is a touring bike and bigger than
Pegasus, my previous bike. Pegasus and I rode almost 75,000 miles in 6 years
together…Zeus and I have logged over 19,000 over the last two years. So despite having ridden almost 100,000 miles
in 8 years I have to admit that prior to heading out here this year all the
above questions flitted through my mind.
Well, yesterday when I got on Zeus, I felt right at home, sure of myself
and ready to ride. Confidence restored!So, the theme song of the upcoming riding season goes like this….Get your motor running, head out on the highway…looking for adventure and whatever comes our way. 😎
Oh, come on, sing it with me!
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We had about a 2 hour window for a ride
today…headed out with no certain destination, just a general idea of heading
over toward IR 15 which is the road through the Tohono O’odham Reservation. It’s just a nice uncomplicated ride…we’ve ridden
there many times in the past three years. Kim wanted me to ride lead because I knew the
way. Couldn’t find it today…well, at least not right away. We started off on a different route than
normal and that totally messed me up. When
I figured out the problem and got us going in the right direction, I then
turned too soon which got us on another wrong road but I could see that there
was a cross road up ahead so we carried on. That road came to a T and it was turn
left or right at that point…we picked right and it also turned out to be the
wrong way. What should have been a 15
minute ride down the road turned into 40 minutes of chasing our own tails. However we were getting plenty of U-turn
practice.😐 We eventually made it to IR 15 but our time
was dwindling so we headed into Casa Grande to catch I-10, which was the fastest
way back to camp. Normally we’d avoid
the highway but we wanted to get our evening walk in before the sun set.
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The various types of cactus around the camp
are showing signs of major distress. The
skin is all pockmarked and cracked…looks like an infestation of bugs has eaten into
most of them. We were up by the office
and Felicia, the new owner, came out to chat. I asked about the cactuses,
expecting her to say something about bugs but was very surprised when she said
they had a hail storm back in October that caused all the damage. Wind and rain also. In fact, one cactus had
become so saturated that it just fell over.
Felicia’s car and the rooftops of a couple of buildings were also
damaged. And by all accounts it was loud
and scary for both two and 4 legged creatures…and it's obvious that it was bad for the cactuses. But cactuses are a hardy bunch and they don't show signs of dying...it mainly appears to be a cosmetic issue.
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I took my Fitbit off today when we got on the
bikes. Felt weird having a naked arm…been
wearing a watch on my left arm for years but it was important to me to get an
accurate step count. Achieved my 10,000
step goal plus a few extras without the help of the bike.
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Today’s
miles: 62
Total
miles: 113
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