Day 8 - Wickenburg to Phoenix

Our trip leader is Mitch. His brother Brian lives in Phoenix and stopped by camp yesterday. Brian brought his friendly long-haired dachshund. Rhodri quickly had the dog doing tricks for pistachios (see photo).
We had a tasty Mexican-themed dinner of tacos and retried beans, a green salad with garbanzo beans, and apple pie for dessert. A photo shows Linda and Jerry digging in.
Readers of earlier blog posts can guess how many men's showers are at the RV park. Yes, one.
The RV park (and Wickenburg) promotes horse riding, as shown in the photo of the street signs. Periodically we heard a donkey in the stables, which are upwind from us (smile). As Carol said, better to hear natural sounds than semis all night as in Quartzsite.
Wow, did it cool off at night! Terry said the temperature in his tent was 40 degrees when he woke up. Three riders have been sleeping under the stars (called cowboy-style here), and slept fine.
Julie has been our assistant trip leader into Phoenix (see photo). Julianne will take over as assistant here. Julie will ride with us into Texas, then ride unsupported to San Antonio, up the Natchez Trace and then home. We are glad she will continue riding with us!
Today we rode 60 miles, climbing 260 feet and descending 1160 feet to Sun City (see photo), then level through Surprise, Peoria, Glendale and Phoenix proper.
Mature seguaro cactus dotted the hillsides. We also started seeing prickly pear cactus, and passed a cactus nursery (see photos).
In yesterday's post I included a photo of 439th St in the middle of nowhere, and wisecracked that it was 438 more blocks to Phoenix. Well, turns out that was true! See the photo of Jerry at 203rd St this morning.
Riding through Glendale we passed orange trees ripe with fruit. Julie, Linda, Andre and I stopped for lunch in a park and shared a picnic table with two city water employees (see photo). They were curious about our ride, and shared their jug of cold water.
In Phoenix proper we were scouting for a break spot. Andre is a former fighter pilot and spotted a well-camouflaged Starbucks. In the picture he is smiling because he scored his daily New York Times in addition to coffee!
We are staying at the Phoenix hostel at 9th and Portland. The photo shows Mitch, Ken, Bob Plant, Terry, Bob Pedersen, Julie and Jerry (taking a picture of me). I shared a load of laundry with Bob Plant. Emptying the wash, I was glad to see Bob's "Thank You" Hershey bar cleaned up intact. Good thing we didn't do hot wash and rinse!
Bruce