 
Tuesday, October 9, 2001 - Beyond Hope
67 miles. Quartzsite AZ to Fairview RV camp, Aguila AZ
That is where we are now headed, out of Hope AZ.
We are having a light lunch of Pepsi, Swiss cheese and Pound cake. We left
Quartzsite and cruised up a 1000 foot ascent on I-10, thankfully without the
rumble strips. We then got off on U.S. 60 and coasted down to Brenda, AZ
for a brunch of frozen/microwaved White Castle burgers, 1 pound of potato (or is
that with an E?) salad and milk; about 1000 calories for each of us. We
think about those kind of things. Since then it has been a grueling 10
mile grind up an almost imperceptible grade into a head wind and being Arizona
you could see where you wanted to go but it was taking forever to get there.
Part way up the slope we crossed the Central Arizona canal which carries water
to the Phoenix conurbation and Tucson from the Colorado River (where else?). It
was not small. After our break it was on to the top of the low lying pass.
Only looking back from the top could you detect the elevation gain.
Brenda and Hope are really little more than glorified
RV camps with a name. For the entire ride today it was very rare to see what you
would consider a real home. Trailers seem to be the order of the day and
the climate allows it. As soon as we entered Arizona we started picking up
solitary sentinels of the Saguaro Empire of Central and southern AZ. The
deeper into AZ we go the more common they become. They add a vertical
aspect to the landscape and the larger ones each have their own unique
personalities. Clearly they are the kings of the desert.
We continued on to Salome AZ (pop. 2,000 Where she
danced!) Here we picked up supper, a can of imported chorizo con papas to go
with our remaining tortillas for supper.
It was then about 25 miles to our destination and the
road had leveled. We were tired and ready to get to our camp site in
Aguila (pop. 600) so we decided to attack. This is not something you often
do when touring with packs but we felt like it. Our slow acceleration thru
Wenden AZ (pop. 450) brought several looks of astonishment as we passed
thru. East of Wenden we kept accelerating even tho' the road now began a
gentle climb. After a while we timed ourselves over a mile and found we
were going over 18 MPH, not bad for loaded tourers! While we pedaled up
the shallow valley, on the right were the Harquahala Mts. and on the left the
Harcuvar Mts., each cloud shadow dappled, in the distance. U.S. 60
appeared straight and endless with telephone poles on the left marching off to
infinity. The road itself offered only a coyote road kill [I thought they
were smarter than that!] and the only rock of the day in the roadway and I
managed to run over it. We couldn't maintain our pace and slowed down some
at the end but we still did 24 miles in 1 hour, 45 minutes.
We slept a sound 11 hours last night. It turns
out that this is a great time to be in AZ because the 110+* temps have
dissipated with comfortable night time lows and the real winter tourist crush
has not yet begun. Soon the desert valleys will be home to great flocks of
snowbirds with their RVs.
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