Back in Phoenix, I began the day with a good jog through the campus of Arizona State University which was next door to the motel. The students look much calmer now that they have had their break, are back at work, and are recovering from liver damage.
Spent the day scoping out Scottsdale. Like so many places seen in Arizona and elsewhere, greatefforts have been made to funkify the shopping areas in an Old West theme. And I must admit, it works. A free trolley carries the tourists (me included) around to reconnoiter the area and deliver them to the high end mall. I went for the air conditioning.
A friend and colleague from home is down here on a little break with friends and very graciously extended an invitation for dinner and a couch to this dusty and grizzly road warrior who is not at all, they learned, a Leonard Cohen doppelganger! I was most grateful for the charm and hospitality I was offered. It was nice to be able to engage in some good conversation, and enjoy some home cooking.
Headed towards the eastern edge of Arizona today, cruising along hwy 60 (passing through Globe again), 70 to Safford, 191 and just starting 78 which will lead me out of the state.
Huge open pit copper mines at Miami, Arizona.
Which requires some pretty big equipment.
The Bruiser is posing with a big truck which is sitting in the bed of an even bigger truck.
Arizona has some gorgeous and varied scenery. That said, it is a very big state and there are great expanses of flat and relatively featureless terrain between the viewpoints; case in point, Hwy 70 which was a long and tedious workout today. Most of the scrub has not been cleared or cleaned up for grazing or agriculture. The area looks poor, unkempt with miles of highway litter, discarded machinery and cars, and bombed out houses and buildings, that outlived their utility and were then abandoned and mistreated.
The Bruiser is always happy to head for the hills and his pilot maps out an appropriate course on secondary roads whenever there is an opportunity to do so. Roads become twisty and spirited through outcrops of rust-coloured and well weathered rock. At higher elevations it is cooler and the vegetation is more diverse. Even the weedy stuff at the roadside looks like a continuous floral arrangement of wild flowers and bristly grasses.
Accommodation for the evening is wildcamping in the valley bottom of high desert grazing land, accessed by a dirt road off Hwy 78.
Prickly pear cactus are abundant and give the landscape a postcard kind of flavour, especially when the setting sun casts its orange glow.
Gusty winds that blew me around today have calmed. Somewhere in the distance a cow is bleating.
Perhaps it is a bull. Hmmm….
