Ride Day 21

Today I left Surprise/Phoenix heading East. My rest did not work out so well. I had major pain issues last night most likely from walking too much on my day off. I got very little sleep because I was twisting and turning trying to find some relief by getting in the right position. Position did not make a difference though so I resorted to morphine. I still did not sleep even after all the morphine. When the sun started to come up, I decided to hit the road to attack the pain. It seemed to help getting back on the bike and pedaling, so I took off.

It seemed that just getting out of this big city was a long ride. I took the canal bike path from near the trailer park and then cut through downtown Phoenix to get to Tempe. Once in Tempe it was a long straight road with lots of signals that slowed me down. There was very little traffic since it was 6:00 on Easter Sunday but I still had to stop at the lights. After a couple more hours I got to Apache Junction and got on the Apache Highway otherwise known as US60. The road was rolling hills changing to a long slow upgrade with heavier than I expected traffic. Again too many lights were slowing me down. I got a warning from a cop that was on foot at one light because I anticipated the green light. He did not cite me.

I rode on up the long slow grade of about 1700’ to Gonzales Pass at 2651’. The scenery was pretty much the same as the last couple of days so I did not take a lot of pics. I went past the Superstition Mountains of the Lost Dutchman fame and took a couple of pics. The story is that the lost Dutchman found a very rich gold mine but nobody has been able to find it since he died. He left a clue to where it is but nobody has solved the clue and found the mine. Such is life.

Then I went past Pickett Post Mountain which was nice to look at. I took a couple of pics. The next mountains were the Signal Mountains the site of an Indian massacre by the American Calvary. The Calvary drove 75 Indians over the cliffs to their deaths. The local black semiprecious mineral called Indian’s Tears is named because of this massacre.

I stopped for a late lunch in Superior and after eating, it was too late to try to make the top of the next 2600’ climb so I put up my tent in the RV park for the night. I will go for the big grade in the morning when it is cooler. Right now it is 92 degrees and I have already done about 85 miles today. That is enough for this old man.