Yeah, but it’s a dry heat… [Weekend in Phoenix: Sunday]

I woke up early on Sunday, or at least tried to… and managed to be on the road by 9am. An hour later than I was aiming for… but it took more time than I thought to plan a shorter route than Saturday. First stop: East out highway 60 to Superior, Arizona

I stopped in Superior for about 15 minutes for a drink, and to watch all the other bikes drive by. There were lots of them out! I kinda wondered where the highway went at that point, as it pointed directly into the mountains… (I would find out later)

Next I made a loop South past Kearny, Hayden and Winkelman, stopping to take a look at some of the open-pit mines in the area: really big holes where they dug things up, right beside man-made mountains of dirt where they dumped back what they didn’t need.

I headed North and stopped in Globe for some gas and a bite to eat. From there I planned to head North a bit farther and hit another dirt road back towards Phoenix… but got on the wrong road out of town.. and before I knew what I had done I was barrelling down a mountain road back towards Superior. But since I wanted to be sure to be back home by 6, the road was nice, I decided not to turn around and just take an alternate route back to Phoenix instead… now I know how the highway made it out of Superior… through a tunnel in the mountain!

But first, I needed some ice cream!

I headed up Usery Pass road to see the big “Phoenix” arrow built into the side of the hill…

…then stopped in a recreation area for another break. There were people wading in the river, floating with the current on tubes, and launching kayaks for longer trips downstream:

Before pointing the bike back towards the city I also stopped near a boating area: well upstream of the recreation park was a large dam, and at the top of that damn was a long line of cars waiting to launch their boats and watercraft. I couldn’t get near the actual launch because of the traffic, so I took some pics from a nearby hill of the road and the dam.

Finally, back in town to drop off the bike… a lot dirtier than when I picked it up, but still running perfectly. And, as a bonus, just shy of the 600 mile cap, so I didn’t have to pay for driving too far on the weekend.

I had a great time roaming around, and would do it again in a heartbeat!