Anthem of the day:
The rainy and cold days are always rough. I unknowingly took a detour through some mountains that used to be a part of the official route but was taken off because of some bad spots for riding.
Started my day with some big breakfast sandwiches from McDs. Good shoulders were hard to come by today, I had to have one eye on my rearview mirror for most of the ride. Especially going through the narrow mountain passes where cars couldn’t see me until they were right on my tail.
Got some more nice desert scenery and some cool rock outcroppings going through the mountain passes. Ending at a KOA in Mesa I’m entering the eastern edge of the massive Phoenix metropolitan region.
I was a little sore about the cold and the rain and not getting in a lot of miles. I also was having trouble finding a place to stay for the next day and figuring out what route I was going to take, the ACA posted a detour that would drastically change the route and I had to decide how I was going to continue. It can be scary not having a plan, especially coming up to an area that doesn’t have a lot of services and wouldn’t provide many opportunities to improvise.
After fretting for a while I struck up a conversation with a guy at a neighboring tent site. He was visiting from Canada and told me that I could look forward to some warm weather ahead of me, which I was very grateful for. I was taken aback when he nonchalantly mentioned that he had terminal cancer and came down to enjoy some warmer weather before he couldn’t anymore. It was deeply humbling to see someone so bravely taking on their burden and put my comparitively small problems into perspective.
Ride info
https://ridewithgps.com/trips/83260957
Gallery
What you see not only depends on what you look AT, but also, where you look FROM.
~James Deacon
Perspective is vital to understanding.