Day 3 - Deming, NM to Needles, CA

568 Miles

Day 3 Trip Map

Up an at 'em early again...though not very sure at what time.  I have a watch and motorcycle clock which are on Houston time.  My iPad and my smart phone were in disagreement with the first two for the entire day, which would have been understandable if they'd have had the same time.  Once I crossed into Arizona the latter two disagreed.  I didn't know which to believe because I know that Arizona stuck their collective butts in the air over Daylight Savings Time and, I think, chose not to use it.  Not the only thing Arizona stuck their butt up in the air over, but that's a litany I'm not going to waste my breath upon.  It is important to note, however, that whenever I crossed the state line from New Mexico to Arizona the average IQ in both states went up...Arizona by a much larger percentage.

My, or better named, Mr. Garmin's route today was almost all slab, I-10.  This was broken only by about a 60 mile alternate route down I-8 to US 95 near Gila Bend, AZ and then another thirty miles back north on US 95 to intersect with I-10 again.  Now there's a town name for you, isn't it?  Gila Bend.  Conjures up only one thing for me and my male peers: bad western cowboys live around there.  Check with any of them.  They'll tell you that half the western movies with bad things happening in them seem to all have occurred in or around Gila Bend.  And it was hot and they were sweating.  Really...every time.  And there's a reason for it.  It's hotter 'n hell around there.  Was today.  102° F at noon.  For my European friends that's like 39° C...and it's bloody hot!

Gila Bend is in Maricopa County Arizona, home to the famous (or infamous, depending on your point of view) sheriff, Joe Arpaio.   He's famous for housing his county prisoners in tents and feeding them outside.  Gets elected over and over again because he's "tough on criminals," etc., etc.  I pulled in to gas up and there were a couple of deputy sheriffs in the store when I went to pay.  I confirmed this was "Joe's county" and so asked what the temperature was.  The younger deputy offered up the 102° F number.  My comment was, "Well, if you're correct then you can tell Joe for me that is cruel and unusual punishment."  He just made a small chuckle and we both went on our ways. 


My GPS has a weather app which will notify me of inclement weather in the area.  For most of the day it would beep in my ear and then throw up the notice and I would look around and not see anything threatening...other, of course, than that remarkably white-hot spherical object overhead beating down on me with little hindrance from the spotty clouds appearing from time to time. 

Which leads to the small group of pictures I took during today's ride.  Unsurprisingly, they're desert scenes.

This is a semi-wide angle shot of some mountains separating New Mexico from Arizona.  This shot came from my little Lumix camera purchased on the advice of my friend Claye who is one of the best at taking pictures I know.  I only mention this because it did not come from any of the wide-angle shots I took with my Cannon EOS Rebel T3 with various lenses and filters, etc., etc. which cost orders of magnitude more than my "little Lumix camera purchased on the advice of my friend Claye" with the wonderful Leica lens.

The remainder of my efforts today are various types of cacti I saw.  Cacti as you may or may not be aware, are generally indigenous to desert areas because, I believe I've mentioned I spent the day in various deserts and it was bloody hot!

I'm sure my buddy Carl D. can name each and every one of these off the top of his head...but I can't off mine.  So, I checked a couple of websites and have made an attempt to name them.  Any corrections or alternatives would be appreciated.

These are, of course, the famous Saguaro cactus and are fantastic.

These were neat growing all over the place and, with the shoot going up so tall vertically, looked to me like the ones we used to call "bayonet" or "Yucca" cactus when I was a kid.  I think the official name is Soaptree Yucca. 

I really liked these guys.  Like the others, they are unique, but seemed to standoff from the others.  I believe these are called Ocotillo cactus.

Another favorite.  I think these are Chain Fruit Cholla.

An example, I think, of the common barrel cactus.














It's "monsoon" season in this part of the west.  Personally, until my buddy Diron J. lived in Phoenix for awhile and told me about it, I thought the monsoon happened in India every year.  But, now that I'm smarter, I understood what a lady at one of my gas stops meant when she told me that.  The point of all this is it came in rather handy right after she said it.

Between my rejoining of I-10 after the I-8 by-pass, and my turn north back on U.S. 95 at Quartzsite, AZ ("B" in the trip map above), there was this section making true the earlier sign which said "No Services Next 50 miles."  When I finally reached that long anticipated oasis I made it a point to stop.  During the 30 minutes prior to this stop, I was burning up, apparently dying of thirst, but not so thirsty as to drink my "safety" bottle of water which I was sure was hotter than fresh brewed tea by this time.  (Yeah, I only thought I was dying.)  What made that last 30 minutes so difficult was the constant beeping in my ear and the resulting display of the "Rain in the Area" notice on my GPS.  Only this time, when I looked up, I could see it, or them, as the case may be.  Off to my front I could readily see low hanging clouds with little mini-cloud burst falling, seemingly, just in front of me and, of course, not where the bloody road was going.  However, after the stop I managed to run into one of them.  It sort of falls into that "be careful what your ask for" thingy.

Seeing I was about to enter the lovely "zone of coolness and wet," I lowered my chin guard with its lovely plastic water preventing shield and looked forward to the anticipated relief.  Unfortunately, it came down in buckets, and largely horizontally, because the wind was gusting at about 40 mph, pushing me to the side of the road on the now pooling sheets of water bringing only one word of my semi-large vocabulary to mind: hydroplaning.  Fortunately for me, Betsy, as usual, did her job well and held her footing.  In the final analysis, it is rather difficult to move an 875 lb motorcycle with a lard ass on the seat even with a significant reduction in the frictional coefficient between tires and  pavement.  Thank God for that.  And the water was just oh so cool and at least as refreshing as dreamt in my philosophy.

I then turned north through the Mojave Desert and checked into a hotel in Needles, California where the temperature upon arrival was only 106° F, and more than enough for me.  It's 8:17 pm now and I just stuck a toe outside preparatory to putting Betsy's nightgown on and don't want to go out there to do that.  But, do it I will.  Betsy deserves all the good I can give her.