My motel was three miles down the road. The ride was a little hairy at first as the roads made long, curvy exits on to freeway-type ramps. However, I stayed out of the high speed area until the last terminal and then took advantage of light traffic to get onto the road heading north, which happily had a paved shoulder. I passed a few big luxurious hotels and was relieved to find my street: Van Buren and happy to see the Days Inn sign on my left. I travel on a low budget and stay in some rather rough places, but this had a large, cheerful lobby and a clean if Spartan room.. They provide shampoo and a room for $33 plus tax. The complimentary copy of U.S. Today reported that Phoenix leads the nation in car theft--a good place to have a bike locked up in your room with you!
The next morning after breakfast at Spinnner's, a 50-s diner at the motel, I rode about five miles east and entered Papago Park. a large patch of dry land around som
e stark red
buttes. Mountain bike trails wind all through
the area
dodging the barrel, chorollo and saguaro cacti. The latter are the symbol of
Arizona and on the license plate. The park was nearly deserted which was nice as
I adjusted to a new riding surbace. In many places the surface is crunchy sand but there are a lot of nasty rocks that could throw one from a bike
and then provide a hard landing.. I rode on
some great trails in the red dirt and over a few
tough hills. After a lot of time but not 
many miles of the
park I got back on Van Buren as it changed into Mill Street and crossed the Salt
River. It is now dammed and forms a lake on the edge of Tempe. It's quite a
surprise to be in such a dry place and suddenly see a lake and boats. Tempe is the home of Arizona State University with some 40,000 students at the main campus. Their football stadium is a monster tucked next to Hayden Butte, a rocky outcropping with a big A on the side of it. The national championship will be decided
here
in the Fiesta Bowl and January 1. The
Phoenix area is by far the most bicycle friendly place I have ever seen. They have bike
trails through the park and also bike lanes on the road . The bike lanes
are sensibly designed and obviously have input from real riders. In places where
parking is allowed they are out from the curb so that parked cars don't
interfere. They even leave room at intersections for cars making a right turn.
Where there are no bike lanes the road is usually wide enough for bikes and cars
to share the area and a plethora of share the road signs and bike route signs
line the roads. They even have some traffic lights with a special place, marked
on the pavement, to stand to trigger the light if no cars are around. After a coffee break I climbed Hayden Butte and got a nice view of the campus
and stadium. I talked to a fellow who graduated from ASU
and was moving back to the area after a few years in Pittsburgh. He said the
bookstores, coffee shops, restaurants etc. along Mill Street are all new. They
look it and are very inviting. Bike racks in front of
every business make it easy to stop and they are mostly well designed-not the
little wheel holders most nonbike places favor. 
After I left Tempe I went on a dirt trail with lots of horse tracks. It followed an abandoned rail cut through a slope and then a little canal. From there I got on the big canal, one of many that run through the city and have bike paths, some paved some not, along them. They are a nice way to travel though the street crossings are sometimes difficult. I then made my way downtown where I encountered dancing nude females. They were statues so its okay. I passed the Arizona Diamondbacks baseball stadium which is gargantuan and enclosed due to the heat. After that I got back on the canal in a more deserted semi-industrial area. I saw quite a few birds including some black and white wading birds with red legs. Thanks to e-nature, my favorite site on the web, I was able to identify them as black-necked stilts. At one point I forced myself to stop at a dollar store in an Hispanic are and get some sunscreen. The clerk didn't speak English but I was able to convey my request in English. In some neighborhoods it feels as if I were in Central America. Most signs are in both languages.
Friday found me pedaling back to Tempe for the big sale at Tempe Bike to replace the windbreaker I somehow managed to loose. A big crowd gathered at opening but no one who could shed light on how to get to Tucson by bike. From the shop I headed east along the Salt River on a paved bike trail. It would take a very long time to ride all the bike trails in the Phoenix area. This trail turns from the river and follows
Indian
Bend Wash. A wash is a dry river and this must be dry most of the time as it has
been developed into a series of parks and long, skinny golf courses.
The trail dips under and climbs over roads and twists
from one side to the other to accommodate other uses. It's more work than it
might seem due to the constant ups and downs, but is certainly a delight away
from traffic. I stopped for an early lunch at China Light in Scottsdale
and then road west to the little town of Paradise Valley which has a mountain in
the middle of it and lots of quiet roads to explore. I followed Mockingbird
around the mountain past pretty homes where people rake the gravel
instead of mow the grass. 
Then I headed into the Phoenix Mountains Preserve on Trail 100. That gnarly excuse for a trail took me over rocks, loose and fixed, that seemed determined to keep me from the top. However, I soon got the hang of it and worked up a good sweat causing me to shed my new jacket. I loved that trail and couldn’t believe how soon desert and mountains surrounded me and blocked off all signs of civilization.
Many side trails ran off in every direction, but Trail 100 was well marked and
easy to follow. It didn’t seem possible to get through those mountains
but twisting and dipping through arroyos I did just
that. Trail 100 epitomized what I came here hoping to experience. I even had
some trail art. I saw maybe a half dozen folks on my
way through. At the other end I ran into the Dreamy Draw (a draw is like a wash
as is an arroyo) recreation area. There I saw a flock of funny little birds with
tassels on their heads. I stopped soon enough to avoid scaring them and watched
with my binoculars as they pecked in the desert gravel like chickens. They
turned out to be Gambrel's quail.
I then crossed a big highway on a large steel bike bridge and followed Dream
The next morning I got an early start and headed south for the first time. I crossed the Rio Salado (Salt River) which wasn’t completely dry but close. After about ten
miles
in the chilly morning air I made my way to the Pima Canyon Parking area. A lot
of people had the same idea and I felt shock at the idea that I’d have to
share the mountain. At the beginning the National trail climbed steadily on a
rough gravel road. Then it became a rough, steep single track.
Being determined not to fall, I walked more than many, but traveling alone had
nothing to prove. In a few minutes, I had left almost everyone behind and saw
only an occasional hiker or biker the rest of the trip.
At one point I found myself wondering why I felt so tired. Then I topped a crest and realized I was literally on top of the mountain. I took the Mormon trail which was supposed to bypass some of the worst of the National trail; it was arduous and
unridable in many places but the extraordinary scenery
distracted me from the effort requires. The trail surface alternated between
crunchy gravel and solid rock formations. Huge piles of rock
and giant saguaro cactus spread out around the trail
in endless varieties of the same theme. At times I could see nothing manmade
except the trace of a path through the brush. At
other times I looked out over the valley where one of America’s largest cities
sprawls for amazing distances. I stopped again and again to take pictures as
every corner seemed to offer another once in a life time view. Eventually I made
it to Buena Vista lookout where the less athletic can see some of the view from
their cars. I took the paved road back to the bottom. It was some five miles of
fabulous, switchback road with glorious views. It
seemed to pretty to be real, and I couldn’t believe I had climbed so high.
According to Mountain Biking Arizona the total elevation gain was 1,200
feet. One sign said that South Mountain is the largest municipal park in the
world. It certainly seems possible. Now it was time to leave Phoenix and head
south.
I had a devil of a time trying to find out if it was possible to ride a bike the 111 miles to Tucson. A source on the web said you could as did a customer at Spinners. However, the Arizona department of transportation shows I10 between Phoenix and Tucson as closed to bikes. I asked at a bike shop but got a vague answer. One fellow said "Arizona Avenue", but offered no details. I decided to ride down and see and made a reservation at Eloy, half way in between. The map shows a road, highway 87 going that far but nothing afterwards. It turned out to be a fairly tough ride due to a
head
wind and long, boring roads. It was desert all they way with mountains in the
distance. After a long stretch in the Gila Bend Indian Reservation, I finally
passed a cute little church with a windblown cemetery
next door. I accessed it via a special gate that keep
cows out but barely allow a loaded bike through. I took a break in an arroyo to
escape the sound of a thousand motorcycles on some kind of group ride. I didn't
count them but the sheriff's deputy said they usually have that many. It's nice
they get out but too bad they have to inflict their noise on the whole world. I
wonder if someone could invent earphones that would look like a dew rag and pump
the noise directly to their ears. Just kidding; live and let live is my motto.
Later, I turned onto highway 187 which would take me through Casa Grande rather
than following 87 through Coolidge where the motorcycles went. It was a neat
desert road with the sense that it would go to the end
of the world. Devoid of buildings or even telephone poles, it passed though land
that made me think of the cowboy movies of my
childhood. I kept expecting Matt Dillon or Hoss Cartwright to coming riding down
the hill. This time of year there aren't many flowers in the desert but I saw a
bunch of yellow ones on this road. Along the way I
passed a bridge labeled Gila River and I'm glad they labeled it otherwise I'd
have missed the river. I had some difficulty finding
a place to eat before landing at a Wendy's at Tanger Outlet Mall, located at the
intersection of I 10 and I 8 all by itself without so much as a gas station next
door. Fourteen miles further and 70 miles from where I started my day I arrived
in Eloy at 
Super
8 motel. The clerk had an accent, which is not unusual here where Spanish seems
as common as English. However, I her accent was different and it turned out that
she was from Poland. "How does someone from Poland end up way out in the
desert in Eloy, Arizona?" Actually she and her husband had lived in Chicago
and Denver and got tired of the cold. I shouldn't make fun of Eloy being
isolated; at least they had an local Earthlink number so that I could update
this account. I got a good meal across the interstate at a truck stop. The clerk
there told me there was a road from Picacho to Marana. If so that would solve my
dilemma as the map shows roads from Tucson to Marana. I left at first light and ran into a cold wind that would warm up but not let up as I pedaled into it all day. Despite the cold I enjoyed a wonderful sunrise behind some jagged mountains. My road ran between I10 on my right and a busy railroad track on my left. The road ended at Picacho, a tiny town six miles south of my motel. Aside from this post office I didn't see any indications of Picacho as the road ran out. I saw two man in trucks working along side the road and pedaled over figuring that they would know the local area. As I pulled up I noticed beat up Montana tags on both trucks and thought I was wrong. However, they said they had been working here quite a while and that I could get to Tucson on the frontage road which they explained I had to get to by crossing under I 10 even tough the frontage road is on this side of the highway. It didn't make much sense but I followed their directions and it worked perfectly. They were correct and it went straight to Marana some 32 miles from Picacho.
I tried to find things to take pictures of but there was only the freeway on my right and the railroad on my left. I took this picture of the train heading through Picacho. I took a picture of myself in front of a mountain and later next to an irrigation lock. That
was
about it until I came upon an oasis. Way out in the desert was Picacho Peak
State Park and next to the mountain a Dairy Queen. I stopped for another
breakfast and really welcomed it after 16 miles of cold toil into the wind.
Actually I enjoyed the ride. It was fun to be surrounded by slowly changing
mountains and traveling on a road with extremely light traffic. The roar of
traffic on the interstate to my right helped me remember to appreciate a road to
myself. Eventually, I got to Marana and had to switch to the other side of the
highway where the frontage road took me 12 more miles to Ina road where I got a
room a a beautiful brand new Red Roof inn for $36 with a coupon. Along the way I passed a
company that sold adobe bricks which were drying in
rows. It felt good to stop. Next.