March 19: Safford, AZ to Lordsburg, NM

After rough pavement and lots of trucks, our ride on US 70 today was delightful. We left Safford under cool overcast skies. I noticed fields being prepared to plant cotton:

After US 191 separated from US 70, it sometimes seemed we had the road to ourselves, few cars or trucks, and no motorcycles.

Stopped at this historical marker with Brenda, commemorating Lorenzo and Seth Wright killed nearby by Indinas.

We were seeing more grass in the landscape, and, of course, hills.

Forty miles into the ride was the town of Duncan. I was magnetically drawn to the 3 Sisters Bakery, where I met Mary, daughter of one of the 3 sisters, and her helper Donna.

I came away with cookies, a mixed berry pie, and a scrum dilly, the local version of the Twinkie.

Enjoying pie further down the road

Carrying the scrum dilly into Lordsburg

Several others In our group stopped at Ol Jo’s Cafe, where we met Al, whose wife had wanted to meet us.

After Duncan, we ran into road work and our adventure for the day. There was single lane traffic, but the monitor let us pass as the shoulder was smooth. After some distance, we ran into fresh wet pavement – lots of blacktop! We passed over the scraped middle section into the open lane, only to discover oncoming traffic. We took to the shoulder on the wrong side and continued on. Then the traffic began to come from behind us, including some trucks. We kept our travel lines straight, the trucks slowed way down – no collisions and we exited safely. No tar collections on our bikes..

The final 10 miles or so, we had a tailwind – I saw 23 mph on my bike computer, without breathing hard. Tonight we are in Lordsburg, NM. We enjoyed margaritas before dinner to celebrate another state crossing.

My roommate tonight is Judy Soule from Kent, CT. She is a semi-retired hairdresser, married for 40 years, with 3 sons. She has been sending postcards/letters to her 92-year old mother every day. She is fund-raising for the Hole in the Wall Gang camp.

Total 78 miles today, average 12.1 mph.