The Phoenix Sprawl

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Sonoran Desert six miles west of Superior

Saguaro

Saguaro

Since leaving the mountains behind me at Superior, Arizona, I have dropped deep into the flat Sonoran Desert, where saguaros are kings and princes, not copper.  Here you see them budding and blooming in a place too dry and hot for anything to bloom. 

Palo Verde

Among them, palo verde (green stick) with its photosynthesizing trunk and branches.  If you think about the dry hot land long enough you find a way to produce food without exposing too much of yourself to the evaporating forces that kill so many.  And here, an unknown flower (unknown to me) just trying to make babies. 

What do I see the most of day after day of pedaling across America?  I see my brown hands that will look silly as they protrude from white arms when I get home—brown from the sun, arms covered under long-sleeve, bright-yellow shirt stay white.  I see the two little computers that give elevation, speed, miles pedaled and any derivative information I may want.  I see the map rubber-banded to a piece of plywood on the handlebars.  I see the yellow bag and the black camera bag over the two red bags.  And I look intently on the road ahead, trying to see those horrible industrial staples that fall off trucks and have given me two flat tires. 

Last evening I rested in Apache Junction on the eastern edge of the great Phoenix sprawl.  Tonight I rest in Youngtown on the west side, having traversed a great metropolis.  It was not the feared dodging of cars that I imagined.  Bike lanes accompanied almost all of the streets I pedaled, and most of the time I was on streets with little traffic. I even passed along a lake where crews paddle their long, narrow boats for sport.

I traveled through the north side of the city, avoiding its downtown.  From one of the few hill I climbed today I got this shot of the city center.  

For the last half of the fifty-six-mile city trek, I found bike paths along canals, transporting bikers and water to where they are needed. 

Most of Phoenix people do not plant lawns and lush vegetation, preferring gravel and cacti which don’t need water.  But in a few of the older sections, trees have graced the land for so many years that they join in continuous umbrella and welcome shade.  

I plan to take a day off here before heading for Wickenburg and more of the rural America that I came to see and where it’s harder to find things I need than here in this populated city.