Nick and Dale's Great Adventure Arizona Edition

A lot of miles have happened since I left off at Needles.  We finished out California with a grind up to Oatman.   Gina, a trail angel at New Diggns gave us free water and we met Oliver the Burro.  The cracked road made riding difficult. 

Our first Arizona stop was in Kingman. We ate well that evening, Dr. Leon Smith was our talkative tour guide and Lyft driver.  At the hotel, we met Ross who was stuck at the hotel for a while after hitting a mountain lion in Oatman, CA.  He is a retired truck driver who decided to see the sites of Route 66 after driving by them for 40+ years.  His claim to fame was picking up a desk for President Reagan and delivering it to the White House, only to have to take it back because the refinisher messed it up!

We were off to Hackberry where we stopped at the General Store.  We met Rhonda, another cyclist, who was riding segments of 66 with her friend Cheryl supporting her in the RV.   

Our next stop was in Grand Canyon Caverns, a throwback motel.  We enjoyed the mucsle car room (they framed the photos from an old muscle car calendar).  The cafe was closed so we improvised from the store, folks were nice and the room was clean.  From there we worked our way to Williams where we had dinner and listened to some live music.  The hotel was at the upper edge of town, so we road to dinner.  Of course, up hill to get back to the hotel!

Through Seligman and passed the Road Kill Cafe, we met Glenn who was solo cycling from Tennesee to Las Vegas to meet a friend.  We also had a trail angel hand us a couple of waters.  Folks have been really nice.  

Williams is a nice town with lots of amenities and a train that goes to the Grand Canyon (maybe next ime we are in town!).  It was a long day (96 miles) with several long hills.  We would find that hills become the norm as we traveled along to Flagstaff where the elevation is around  7000 ft. New to us, riding along the interstate is allowed (and most of the time you have no choice).  Trucks and cars whizzing by can be a little unnerving.  We were planning a stop at the Meteor Crater RV park.  Dale and I made the decision to go 20 more miles to Winslow.  It looks like we will be sending our camping gear home after NM.  We like hotels better. We took our turn "standing on the corner" and headed out of town.

We chugged along towards the Petrified Forest NP.  Not much to look at until we got into the park.  The Petrified Forest and the Painted Desert blend together nicely.

  I've been here before (Dale hasn't) and it is more beautiful by bike.  It was 28 miles through the park with the last eight being uphill.  The park closes at 5 but, they want everyone out by 630. 

We got stopped by a ranger who thought our car was parked several miles back. 

We finished the day with 22 miles along I40, the last few in the dark for a total of 107 miles.  We slept well and my burger on Navajo Flatbread hit the spot.

The last day in AZ was tough.  Not enough recovery time, multiple flat tires led to a longer day even though the miles seemed short.  That said, the landscape was awesome.  We made it to Gallup, stay tuned! Arizona dished out over 370 miles with over 13000 ft of elevation gain (lots of up and some fun downs).