Day 37 – Mesa to Peoria – Bicycle Days

I woke up at my KOA camp and contemplated once again taking a dip in the camp hot tub. I didn’t bring my swim trunks so I decided against it. I was still coming up against a confusing part of the route. I had to decide whether to go south and take a detour that the ACA was now recommending, but seemed like it had fewer services, and I hadn’t planned for, or to continue on the route I had planned which allegedly had poor riding conditions. I decided to just continue on my route and ride Northwest through Phoenix. I packed up camp and got started pretty early so I stopped at a Mexican chain I’d never been to before for a breakfast burrito.

I rode into Mesa proper and got some suburban riding for the first time in a while. Riding was nice, plenty of bike lanes. It was super cool to see how they adapted the suburbs to fit the arid desert of Arizona. Instead of grass, houses had different colors of gravel adorning their lawn. It had the effect of making the neighborhood feel like an upscale fish tank.

Crossing the amorphous boundaries that exist between Mesa, Tempe, and Phoenix, I got a taste of what biking infrastructure of the future could look like. Bike lanes were everywhere, and very convenient to access. Crosswalks even had special buttons for cyclists.

I still had no idea where I was going to stay that night so I pulled over at a park around noon to figure it out. I sent some messages to people on Warmshowers asking if they knew any good places in Phoenix to set up a tent, but unfortunately no one had any leads. My travel agent (my mom) helped out and found me a Motel 6 in Peoria.

I finished another segment of the trip in Tempe. I am now beginning the final segment (paradoxically segment 1) of the trip.