Rider In The Storm

After an uneventful night (in a good way) beside the Burro Jim Motel, I woke to an incredibly colourful sunrise. Not a bad way to start the day. However, I was still in Aguila. As discovered yesterday, there isn’t a whole lot in the way of services there. As such, I was packed up and on the road before 8:00 AM again. My first goal for the day was Wickenburg, about 40 km away.

Wickenburg was home to a few more services including a Subway. As would be expected, that’s where I had breakfast. While there, the beautiful sunrise that had started my day had been swallowed up by some incredibly large and dark storm clouds. But that too was beautiful.

From Wickenburg my plan was less structured. Actually, I really had no plan whatsoever. I didn’t have any accommodation arranged for the day so I had a feeling I’d be making things up as I went along (more so than usual). Phoenix was certainly within range at about 140 km away. I was even considering doing an extra long day since it was looking like I would be enjoying another tailwind.

The tailwind did in fact materialize and it was a wonderful easy ride – although, there was some rain along the way. I had planned on stopping for lunch in Wittman (yes, at Subway) but ending up bypassing it for a couple of reasons. One, the wind was blowing so much that I made it there far more quickly than expected. Two, the light rain turned into heavy rain as I neared Subway. I was already wet but since I was warm from cycling, I figured nothing good could come from stopping – unless you consider chills and putting on cold and wet rain gear to be a good thing. And so, I pedalled on.

The sign welcoming me to Surprise, AZ was just that. A surprise. Not because I didn’t expect a town with that name but because of how quickly I arrived at said town. I still hadn’t decided how far I was going to ride today but the tailwind was certainly encouraging me to go further. Much further. Of course, since I didn’t really know what my options were I stopped at the first available WiFi location. In this case, it was McDonald’s.

I haven’t eaten at McDonald’s in over ten years and I wasn’t about to break that streak today; however, I have used their WiFi on many occasions. As I sat outside reviewing my options, a presence was beginning to loom over my shoulder. A very dark presence. It was a cloud. A big cloud. A big nasty cloud. But also a very cool cloud. Whatever the description, it was a cloud that was clearly about to make things wet. Very wet. As such, I decided to wait it out.

Waiting it out took took a bit longer than expected. About 2 hours longer. But I have to say it was worth it. I haven’t seen a thunderstorm like that in quite some time. I did the lightning-thunder-counting thing to get a sense of how big of a storm it was. It was big. Even though the dark cloud was directly above me, the gap between thunder and lightning was about 20 seconds initially.

The small strip of shelter that I claimed outside McDonald’s wasn’t particularly spacious but it kept me adequately sheltered. By the time I finally decided it was safe to move on again, my panniers were a somewhat wet but I was essentially dry.

During the prolonged rain delay I had decided that tonight would be a hotel night. I hadn’t heard from any Warm Showers hosts and with the two hour delay I had become significantly less motivated to get back on the road – despite the tailwind. Plus I figured finding a cheap hotel would be easier outside of Phoenix. After a very exhaustive search I eventually found a reasonable hotel deal and booked it. I was set for the night.

As I wheeled my bike away from my temporary shelter to start my ride to my nearby hotel, I heard someone ask, “Where you travelling to?” Thus began a conversation about my trip, where I’ve been, where I’m going. The usual. It became less usual when the man in question officially introduced himself as Bob Reynolds. It turns out Bob is a Warm Showers host – I’d actually seen his profile online. The only reason I hadn’t contacted him was his profile indicated he wasn’t available for hosting. It turns out he just hadn’t updated his profile. We chatted for a bit before he offered to take me out to dinner so we could further discuss our respective cycle tours – he recently rode the Southern Tier from the east.

It was only about 3:00 PM at the time so we arranged to meet up again at 6:00 PM for dinner. I’m not going to lie, it was a very unexpected and enjoyable change of plans. And perhaps a bit fitting that it happened in Surprise, AZ.

I met up with Bob as scheduled at 6:00 PM but not before taking a picture of a beautiful rainbow that spanned the entire hotel (and more). It’s the sort of thing that had I seen it in a commercial I would’ve thought it was ridiculous. But in this case it wasn’t. It was very much real. And on the right side it was actually a double rainbow. Nature’s beauty strikes again.

Bob and I ended up at The Outback for dinner and it was a great evening. There was an abundance of stories shared from our respective trips and Bob even brought along a couple of photon books from his adventure. It was a very enjoyable evening only made possible because of the large thunderstorm that happened to roll through Surprise at the the same time I did.

By 8:30 PM I was back at the hotel and settled into another evening of blogging, photo editing, and a little bit of freelance editing. Of course, my unexpected dinner plans meant I had less time for such things but I was more than okay with that.

Much like today, my plan for tomorrow is a bit lacking. I fully expected to pedal further today than I did but things worked out pretty well. I’ll wait until the morning to look at the map to see what my options are for the next few days. Normally I don’t plan that far ahead but there are a few somewhat remote days in my future so my options may be a bit limited. And I figure I should check to see what those options are.

Today’s totals:
Distance travelled: 97.36 km
Ride time: 3:58:58
Average speed: 24.44 km/h
Maximum speed: 47.30 km/h