Thursday, April 7
Thatcher to Safford, AZ
8.5 miles

Everything came together for me to be lazy today. I didn’t want to be totally wiped out by riding 87 miles yesterday, but it felt so good to sleep in, in a bed, til 8am, and then I still hadn’t done my laundry, and there was still some question about which route I would take, and there was a place called the Essence of Tranquility Mineral Baths nearby.

When traveling particularly, there is the tension between doing something and experiencing the journey. Yesterday, for example, I passed on a Desert Vegetation Arboretum, as well as the Besh-Be-Gowah archaeological excavation site, even though they were both directly on my route. And if a point of interest is a half mile or more off the road I’m riding on, there’s no way I’m going to see it.

So did I do anything yesterday? Or, more germanely, did I miss out on anything? Today, I rode 5 miles off my route to spend the night at a ticky-tacky “spa” with a Carneval/Broadway Musical themed bathroom and a sign in the common area that says it “is NOT a bunk house, dorm, flophouse, or sleeping area in any way shape or form!”

Said bathroom decor.

One way to look at it is that skipping the archaeology got me here, and I like old Native American stuff. Was it the right choice? How am I to answer that? But here I am in the present again.

Here’s what I did do today:

1. Grocery shopping at Basha’s, a regional chain. Everyone pronounces it “Bashes,” and I was sure they must be mistaken, maybe Americanizing another language, until I heard Joe Basha himself say it that way in an add over the intercom.

2. Laundry. The laundromat had two wrinkled, gossipy ladies instead of a change machine and a soap dispenser. They wouldn’t let me use the restroom, but pointed me to a back corner that “everyone always used” so I could change into some regular pants and wash the bike shorts I was wearing for the second day. They were also a wealth of information about the two possible routes I was considering riding.

3. Checked in at the Chamber of Commerce information center. The gentleman at the desk looked through phone books and maps to help me figure out if a campground I was thinking about stopping at still existed. He had met the Wandering Wheels group a few days ago when they stayed at his church. He got another woman to help look up weather on the Internet to help me decide on a route. So friendly, and such a difference from the naysayers at the Globe office! Then he went and helped another traveller who wandered in jump his car.

4. Lunch. The Chamber of Commerce recommended a couple of places downtown. I ate at El Coronado, a breakfast quesadilla with green chiles. I have been told that green chiles are the first major regional difference I will encounter in Mexican food as I head east. Yum! Then I splurged on Fried Ice Cream. I mean, I rode 87 miles yesterday! I should have taken a picture of that. It was so delicious! Crispy and ice creamy. I will not be passing up fried ice cream again, I suspect.

5. Biked to the spa. Five slow miles. Good thing I wasn’t going any further for the day. Plus, it was one o’clock by the time I headed out there. Tomorrow I will start really early, I promise.

6. 7. 8. 9. Soaked, did yoga, and laid around. Played a 57 point Scrabble word! Guess I’ll eat dinner at some point and soak some more.

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