Over the Hill and Far Away……….

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!

We awoke to another dreary, rainswept day – no, sorry, that was you – ours was ridiculously warm and sunny as usual.

We had decided to stay on another day to take a trip to the Mexican border which lies about 40 miles to the south. Having received warnings both at home and abroad about the potential dangers of the border area we hired mariachi costumes to enable us to blend in with the locals but unfortunately the sombreros kept blowing off on the bikes.

The route to the border at Lukeville took us down Highway 85 through the Sonoran Desert and the Organ-pipe Cactus National Monument. This was a classic ride down a quiet two lane highway through spectacular desert scenery.

We stopped for petrol about half way in the tiny town of “Why”. Speculating about the origins of the name we imagined the original settlers being asked “Why (on earth did you choose to live here)?” Or maybe it was founded by a grizzled pioneer called Ebenezer Why. In fact it turned out that it owes its name to the fact that Highways 85 and 86 used to intersect there in a “Y” junction but state law required all town names to have at least 3 letters so “Y” became “Why”! By the way the gas station was, of course, called the “Why Not”.

There was plenty of County Sheriff and Border Patrol presence along the road and in fact the day began to take on something of a law-enforcement theme from thereon. We reached Lukeville and the Mexican border at the aptly named Gringo Pass. With assurances that we would have no trouble getting back in we were waved over the border on foot to the Mexican side.

Having set foot in Mexico, I had a bottle of Coke while Mark was being mugged and having his organs harvested. We then walked back to the American side where we had to pass through Immigration again, which was slightly unnerving but our reception seemed to be a little warmer than that of the Mexicans who were coming through at the same time.

On the way back we stopped off at the Organ-pipe Cactus National Memorial Visitors’ Centre, which was fascinating. The area was set up to help restore the biodiversity of the area that had been over-grazed in the past. It’s hard to imagine a desert becoming more barren but that is what has been happening and the original desert that they are working to restore is actually very rich in plant and animal life.

About 10 miles north of the visitors centre we came to a Border Patrol checkpoint. Mark was taken to one side for questioning which caused me some slight anxiety as I followed him in! A Border Patrolman then came up to me, fixed me with a steely stare and asked if I was a US citizen. I naturally retorted “Certainly not old chap. I’m British!” This seemed to have the desired effect and I was waved on my way. I then had an irrational urge to say “Go easy on my friend. He’s a Mexican and he doesn’t speak much English”. However I decided that neither the Patrolman nor Mark would be likely to appreciate the joke. Fortunately my companion was released soon after and we were able to continue on.

A few miles further along, Mark had to stop to check some equipment on the bike and the local Sheriff rolled up and asked him if he was OK. So all in all we seem to have seen quite a bit of the law on this stage of the trip.

We rounded off the day with a visit to the centre of Ajo which is quite a pleasant old Western town. The huge open-cast copper mine there closed down in the 1980s, the railroad stopped running and the population dropped from 10000 to 2000. We visited the local history museum which is run by volunteers and occupies the church of what had been an Indian village until the mining company moved them out! They had some quite fascinating old artifacts which had all been donated by local people and we had a very interesting talk through it all by a retired local history teacher.

So that’s it for today. Tomorrow we aim to get to Benson which is east of Tucson and should put us within a day’s ride of New Mexico.

The day… (can I leave you to fill in the rest). Anyway it was a little cooler than yesterday with temperatures hovering just under 100F (all temperatures here tend to be in Fahrenheit and I can’t be bothered to convert so you Celsius-heads will have to do it yourself).

We were back on Interstate Highway 10 and after about 5 miles we crossed the Colorado river and were into Arizona.Quite spookily, large cactuses started to appear almost immediately. We noticed that we were passing through the “Colorado River Indian Reservation”. The Native Americans must have been absolutely chuffed to bits to have been gifted all these acres of barren desert and scrub brush (which they probably thought that they already owned). There were none in evidence to ask so I suppose we’ll never know.

We rode down i-10 for about 120 miles until we joined Highway 85 which took us through Gila Bend to Ajo. We had a mixture of three lane, two lane and single lane roads and the desert scenery was practically unvarying for the whole distance. There were rocky hills and outcrops and flat stretches of sandy desert. From a distance this looked green because of the bushes that grow in it but close up these are fairly widely dispersed in what is otherwise barren sand. There are also a few cactuses dotted about here and there. We half expected to see a posse ride across the road.This is the sort of scenery we had always imagined riding through when we planned this trip.

The road itself was fairly deserted and often all we could see was it disappearing into the blue heat haze far in the distance. The desert landscape did become rather monotonous and we did get somewhat bored with it although it was quite exciting to discover that a one point we were passing through a US Airforce bombing range. The occasional dust storms were also quite amusing

We were really struck with admiration for the tenacity the original pioneers. After about 10 miles in this desert on a horse or mule we would have said “Sod this for a for a game of settlers, I’m off back to the saloon”.  They would have made a film about it called: “How the West was Largely Ignored on Account of it Being Too Hot and Dry and Dull.

After 195 miles we arrived in Ajo and booked in at the La Siesta Motel and RV Park at about 3pm. Even though this is a very small town, seemingly like all American towns it is widely spread out and we were alarmed to find that the nearest place to eat was about 2.5 miles away. Why, I hear you ask, would this be a problem? you have motorcycles surely? Well the answer starts with b, ends in r and there are a couple of e’s in the middle. We then discovered that there are no taxis and the only public transport is a local bus service that only runs till 6 and has to be booked in advance.

We booked a pick-up for 3.15 to take us to Marcella’s Diner and dashed round like scalded cats beautifying ourselves. When we got on the bus we were told that in fact the latest we could get back would be 4.20! This being the only option we piled into Marcella’s shouting for double orders of beer and the menus. Aside from the big blue and green plastic mugs they gave us to drink from, the meal, if somewhat rushed, was more than adequate. I had a beef chimichanga, which I’ve always wanted to try, and which to my surprise was a sort of Cornish pasty in choux pastry. The home-made salsa was delicious. The clientelle seemed to sum up this part of America, with Native Americans, Anglos, Latinos and what appeared to be a Weeble. We got talking to a lady whose family had moved to Ajo from Mississippi after the Civil War 150 years ago and who described herself as mixed Native American-Italian. Everyone seemed to be fluent in both Spanish and English.

We got the bus back at 4.20. The only other passenger was  a disabled lady who grumbled to the driver about her neighbour who had just got out of jail in Tucson and was making a nuisance of himself out in the street on his skateboard. The driver helped her into her house when we got there and we thought what a really nice service it was for people who are either too poor, too disabled or (in our case) too drunk to be able to drive. And it was only 75c each.

That then was the end of our night out in Ajo and I am now sitting in the shade by the pool just about to add the last full-stop to the blog for today. We will be staying here tomorrow and visiting the Organ Pipe Cactus National Park and maybe having a quick hop into Mexico.