May 17th – Ajo to Benson

I’ll leave it to you to guess what the weather was like today. There was no breakfast at the motel so we set off early and retraced our steps to Why where Highway 85 meets Highway 86. There is now a T junction here so I suppose if it was being named today, Why would become Tea. We stopped at the Why Not to refuel and then got on the 86 for the next 135 miles.

The route took us through the Sonoran desert and the Tohono O’odham Indian Nation which has its capital at Sells, the only significant town we passed through. There were also a couple of villages which seemed like nothing more than a few shacks by the roadside. The road was single lane highway the whole way with the desert landscape that we have become so familiar with now. There were however some interesting bendy bits which are great fun so long as there was not a huge pickup truck or an RV the size of a suburban bungalow coming the other way. Some of the RVs are breathtaking. They are about the same size as a coach that could take the entire workforce of a West Midlands engineering firm on its annual works outing. Many of them also tow behind them a vehicle to use when they park up and which itself is usually of sufficient size to take a family of six on a week’s camping holiday.

We saw lots of Border Patrol vehicles and helicopters because we were travelling fairly close to, and parallel with, the Mexican border. Inevitably Mark, aka “Mr Shifty, the Border Patrol Magnet” got pulled in at the one checkpoint we passed. I would probably have got through OK but Mark helpfully pointed out that we were travelling together! This time my “I’m British, Gawd bless ya, Mary Poppins” routine failed to impress and I too had to dig around in my panniers for my passport. Once satisfied the BP people couldn’t have been nicer and wished us a safe onward journey.

We skirted round the edge of Tucson and picked up Interstate 10 which took us the remaining 50 miles to Benson. We are only about 10 miles from the legendary Tombstone so we plan to visit there in the morning.

We have seen quite a few bikers on our travels and have perfected the “low five” greeting which is a sort of low wave cum treading-water gesture with the left hand. Most two wheeled travellers seem to do this, from the lowliest scooter rider to the big, hairy guys on the Harleys. One day we even saw a large group of choppers with riders who could only have been Hells Angels on their way to trash a small town but even they took time out of their busy schedule to give us a wave.

So that was about it for the day. We kept up a good pace and didn’t stop much so we arrived at Benson about 1pm and checked into the motel. We probably could have got quite a bit further today but each night we have to estimate in advance what seems to be do-able the next day and book ahead. The motel is on the outskirts of town and not within walking distance of anywhere except the local Denny’s. The one local taxi firm refused to even contemplate a pick up from here any later than 4.30 so it looks like Denny has us for the night. If you are ever passing through here please call Benson Taxis and tell him from me he’s a tw*t (I would have done it myself but he hung up on me).

In the unlikely event of anything exciting happening between now and bedtime I will add an addendum to this post but somehow I think this is the last you will hear from us till tomorrow!