Day 21: Globe, AZ to Thatcher, AZ

March 15, 2013

There's one redeeming thing about Globe: once I reach the top of the hill at the edge of town I pick up a downhill that takes me seven easy miles to the east. Then, after a short climb, the highway continues down for another eight or nine miles into Peridot. That makes it easy to get the hell out of Globe.

The sights and sounds out here, out in the country I first saw at the top of the pass yesterday, are wonderful. Whenever I stop, a chorus of birds chirp from within the bushes and tree branches that line the road. The browns and yellows of the past few weeks trade places with land covered in green grass and spotted with little orange flowers as far as I can see. In the distance I spot mesas with table-flat tops and canyons that weave gentle paths up to undulating peaks. To the northeast, the layers of a mountain range fade from view in ever lighter and hazier shades of blue. It's the best way to start the day.

The 10th and 11th crosses of the day. I've been on the road for 90 minutes at this point.

There's a bulletin board at the Apache Burger Travel Center in Peridot. It has some ads for a rodeo, a powwow, a birthday banquet, and camo and archery gear. But the rest of the postings are dire. There's one covered with skulls and an image of the Grim Reaper: "You wouldn't mess with death, so why would you mess with meth?" Next to it there's an illustration of a chicken: "I may be a chicken for not trying drugs, but at least I'm a live chicken." Below that, in big block letters: "Make the right call, say no to drugs." The next few miles that follow go according to the script: small one-story houses that look alike, broken bottles covering the sides of the highway, and an air of inner-city poverty out in the isolated high desert.

The riding out here is a challenge. The highway doesn't have constant traffic, but because it's two lanes with a narrow shoulder I check the mirror every six seconds. On top of that, there are the rumble strips that take up two-thirds of the shoulder and the thorn-covered branches of the pale brown shrubs that overhang the guardrails and sometimes extend to the edge of the lane. Crosses pop up every few miles to remind me what's at stake. It's a situation that doesn't lend itself to daydreaming.

And yet it's a great day to be pedaling across the country. The views stay amazing, with snow-capped mountains looming over the valley to my right and rolling plains anchoring the left. At times the highway cuts through the lower hills so that jagged, white-tan rock faces line the road's edge. Hills show up in front of me and hang around for hours, but they're rollers that rise and fall with ease and don't dunk me in a pool of my own sweat. And the forecasted headwind — the one that every other person who's ever ridden this stretch complains about — never arrives. If I could wave my hand and vaporize the cars and fifth-wheels and semis, this would be one of the trip's greatest roads yet.

Along the way I tackle important questions, like how do all of these water bottles filled with piss end up along the side of the road? Does the driver steer with one hand, then unzip their fly, wriggle their junk out of their pants, and then pee into the little bottle opening all in one tightly choreographed dance at 75 miles per hour on a winding two-lane highway? Or is the passenger like, "Hey man, I gotta go, don't look," before he whips it out and takes a leak while the driver pretends not to notice? I have enough trouble making it happen in my tent, with two hands, using a huge Gatorade bottle, with the benefit of knowing that I won't kill myself or anyone else if I screw up. I spend 20 minutes going through all the possibilities, but I just can't figure out how they do it.

I pass the hottest part of the day sitting on a bench under the cover of a rest area canopy in Bylas. There I meet Steven and Liz, two 20-somethings headed east from Southern California to New Orleans or Alabama, up through Kentucky and Virginia, and the on to Maine by some time in July. It's their first time on any long ride, they're hacking together the route on their own, and they're figuring out the whole touring thing as they go. They're a couple of badasses, and when I wish them all the best I mean it sincerely. After they head back out into the heat I watch stray dogs with giant balls pee in the bushes as I sit across the way from about a dozen 50- to 60-year-old Apache men, all overweight. They hang out and shoot the shit and don't seem to have anywhere else to be. But I guess that makes sense; in a town of about 2,000 people in the middle of nowhere, with no restaurants or bars, if you don't want to hang out at someone's house this is your only option.

After a dead calm morning, at exactly 1:58 p.m. the promised tailwind wakes up. With a snap of the fingers I pack up, clip in, and catch the wave. For the next 30 miles it blows straight at my back, sending me off the reservation, into the heart of the Gila Valley, and on to dinner and camp faster than I ever could have dreamed. It cancels out the noise that usually rushes over my ears, so all I hear is the hum of bike tires on pavement, the slight rub of the chain against a misaligned derailleur, and the crash of the gear into the racks every time I hit one of the eight thousand cracks that span the shoulder. I sweat like mad because there's no breeze washing over me to dump the heat, but it's almost impossible to find the will to pull over, stop, and mop it up. It's one of the best tailwinds ever.

Just east of the reservation in the dead town of Geronimo.

In theory, a gift-from-God tailwind should guide me into camp rested and relaxed. But it always turns out the opposite. I think, "Man, what if this thing craps out in like an hour? I've gotta mash and get as far as I can!" It's like stepping into one of those wind-blown cash grab booths you might see at some low-end casino or used car lot. By the time I hit Thatcher in the early evening I'm toasted.

Bike touring has taken me to places of incomparable beauty — places so transcendent and moving I have trouble finding the words to convey how I feel about them. The Blue Ridge Mountains, the Grand Tetons, Glacier National Park, and the San Juan Islands all fall into that bucket. It's with much the same sense of awe that I approach the Red Lamp Mobile Home and RV Park.

Where to begin?

As I ring the bell at the manager's house and wait for her to come to the door, I read the sign attached to the wrought iron gate of the pool. It lists four rules:

Use the toilet before entering the pool.
Take a shower before swimming.
Do not enter the pool with a cold, open wound, diarrhea, or any other skin or body infections.
If incontinent wear a tight fitting rubber or plastic pants or a swim diaper.

After I pay, the manager gives me a key to the bathroom.

"Let me know if it looks bad in there," she says. "Someone keeps going in there and, you know, really making a mess of the place. I don't understand it."

I'm not sure how to respond to that, so with images of shit-smeared walls and other insanity running in a slideshow through my head I say something like, "Wow, ok. That's, um ... that's a weird hobby."

The area set aside for tents has its own charm. It's a modest-sized patch of grass that glows a radiant yellow. It sits no more than 25 feet from the roaring lanes of Highway 70 and closer still to the sidewalk, where too-skinny people with obvious drug problems pass every ten minutes or so. To protect the tent from the wind, I instead set up in front of the bathroom, near the mighty glow of a Pepsi machine and a few empty plastic baggies that used to hold an ounce of cocaine. As the ground sheet falls on top of cigarette butts and other windblown garbage, all I can do is laugh. What a find! And at only twice the price of a campsite at Glacier National Park.

The sunset only accents the Red Lamp's natural beauty.

Among the roar of diesel truck engines and the flatulent exhaust notes of Harleys and custom choppers, it's the perfect place to stretch out in the tent and soak in one of my last nights in West Alabama/rural Arizona. Tomorrow brings the first of several straight days of long elevation gains, strong winds, and colder temperatures. It should also put me within pissing distance of New Mexico.

Today's ride: 76 miles (122 km)
Total: 904 miles (1,455 km)

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