Phoenix, etc

Had an amazingly good time at Julie and Greg's place. Hung out, relaxed, bbq'd, watched a lot of movies, hung out in the swimming pool, cleaned the pool(not cause I peed in it or anything, it just needed it). Had some damn tasty pizza at a place called Oregano's, and a very decadent dessert they call a pizzookie, think of it as a small personal pizza pan, loaded with half cooked cookie dough topped with ice-cream and stuff. From their website: "A 1/2 pound of Chocolate Chip, White Chocolate Macadamia Nut, or Peanut Butter Chocolate cookie dough, slightly baked in a 6-inch pizza pan then topped with 3 scoops of vanilla bean ice cream." aka heart attack in a pan. But what a way to go! :)

Funnily enough, I never made it into the city of Phoenix itself, I spend all my time in the surrounding suburbs. What I did see reminded me a lot of Calgary, modern looking city, small core of high rises, surrounded by the low level construction of the suburbs.

The only sad bit about it all was I had a very limited time to visit with my buddy Donna who now lives there. She had to leave for New Zealand for a family emergency and we only had a couple hours to hang out.

I was pretty surprised at how quickly I acclimated to the climate there. Within a few days the temps felt good and we went hiking up a mountain called Camelback, named so because it looks like a camel lying down for nap. At the time I thought it had the same elevation gain as the Grouse Grind, but it's less than half that height. Still we did it in 39C heat and it took an hour to reach the top.





Also got the bike serviced at a independent shop, called TonUp Motorcycles, it was recommended to me by someone in the 'strom' community who takes her bike there. Great shop, they came in under their quote and did a fantastic job. Also got a great tip on a place to go riding. One observation I had about riders in the area is that the majority of them had wicked chicken strips. Easy enough to do when everywhere you look it's flat and no twisties to be seen anywhere.

Turns out 'The Ride' to do in the area is a run called Tortilla Flats, one of the mechanics at TonUp, Jeremy, raved about it and said it was the best local ride. He did warn me that the road claimed on average 5 rider lives a year due to them going to fast etc. He also recommended that I do the ride early to avoid the main crush of riders and the obligatory police presence. I hit the road by 8am and was east for Tortilla Flats. The road itself starts off with low rolling hills surrounding you and the road itself winding through the valleys between them. Eventually the hills turned into a canyon and the serious twisties began. Jeremy had warned me to not get target fixated by the lake or the 'rock', they seem to be the leading cause of accidents there. Apparently there's a fair number of skid marks going into that rock. Oddly enough I didn't even notice either of them, being so used to riding in BC with the surplus of mountain passes and bodies of water to distract me. :D



What was cool about this road is that the pavement ran out and left me with 22 miles of dirt road to ride on, right through to Roosevelt Dam. The entire route is a part of the "Apache Trail". Some pretty fascinating history there. The ride on dirt was fun stuff, started out pretty slow, but as my confidence grew with the bike and the tires/conditions, I was soon cruising at 60kph, at one point I saw a big tarantula crossing the road, had to stop and get a picture of it of course.


All too soon, I was back on paved road and looking for some lunch. Sadly there was no places for lunch on that side of mountain range. The closest town was 50 miles away. Oh darn, I got to turn around and ride it again! As an added bonus, there is a nice little restaurant in Tortilla Flat. All in all, a damn fine ride.

Afterwards, as they say, all good things... I had to start getting ready to leave Phoenix and make my way back home.