Thursday April 16, 2015

We were up early (5:45 am) a “wet wipe” wash in the tent and across the road at the McDonalds for breakfast and the loo.

We were on the road by 8:00 am. Tummies full with egg McMuffins and hash browns, I cannot remember the last time we had egg McMuffins or McDonald’s hash browns – they tasted good.

It was a little chilly to start the day and the wind was cool, we kept our yellow windbreakers on all day.

A small climb out of Wickenburg and we are were on a very straight flat road towards Wenden and Salome. We had emailed a warmshowers host for Wenden, but had not received a response. We had another contact for Salome and we knew there were campsites in Salome.

The road was very flat, very straight, we were in the valley all the way. The wind direction was north westerly and we were heading westerly. Although it should have felt like we were going against the wind, we maintained an average speed of 20 kph. The drafting worked really well for me, I could maintain a good average when I was in front, and then recover nicely behind Ralf before taking the lead again, Ralf at one point called me speedy Gonzales.

We met a couple of touring cyclists along the route, they said they could see us from miles away. I guess the yellow jackets and yellow pannier covers work. We chatted to them for a while. They were only out for a week, San Diego to Mesa. We commented that we liked Mesa and the cycle lanes. The fella I spoke to cycled a lot, and wanted to do a world tour, he was trying to persuade his cycling companion to go with him. His cycling companion wasn’t ready for retiring yet – he was only 62. At one point the guy I was talking to called me a young lady, I almost fell of my bike! Please no comments from the peanut gallery.

We arrived in Wenden and had a great lunch at Crystal’s Café. Then we headed out to Salome. We stopped to chat to Min, a Korean cyclist who was stopping for something to eat. He had already checked in to one of the motels and suggested we stay at the same motel. We wanted to find the campsite.

As we cycled towards another motel, a guy asked if we were looking for a room for the night. We said we were, and he told us that the motel we were looking at was the best motel in Town. How much we asked, $70.00 inc tax.

A scrubby bit of ground, but hot, clean shower, we even got clean towels, use of the kitchen (including the fridge), coffee in the morning and internet and a really interesting eclectic back yard.

Too expensive and we were about to cycle away. He said do you want to camp, I have a space. We checked it out and here we are. Rande said we could pay whatever we thought it was worth.

I would open this up to touring cyclists, contact ACA and create a Peddlars Rest right here in Salome. After chatting to Rande he told us he had been part of the ACA but was inundated by cyclists and it interfered with his motel business. He said “Anytime I try to make a lot of money it backfires, so I just make enough to get by”.

Ralf took some great photos of the cacti.