Day 10 Peridot Az to Safford, Az.

Day 10, a nice even number. And, I got everything to actually work this time.  It was not a big ride, but tiring.  Fairly busy traffic does that to you.  59.6 miles and only 1620 feet of climb, but it was up and down pretty much all day.
The views were not spectacular, but very impressive in a long-view way. 

What you can see is the color green!  Out here they say the colors are only green when they have a lot of moisture.  Well, over the last several days there have been rainfalls, some fairly big and the plants and cacti are just bursting with leaves, flowers, and a lot of green.  Here is looking along the road at what is usually dead appearing plants.

As we travel along the countryside going through the little towns, as per the last trip, show how devastating the impact of the economy has been.  There are miles of empty farms and run-down stores/bars/ houses.

Those places that are still working way out here are usually bars, and are simple, basic, and easy to defend.

 When we got into Safford, Az, the towns were larger, more "funded" and the people there were just better off.  They even had enough $$ to have an ice cream store - which we were required to stop in! What was surprising is that they had a set of pictures on the back wall showing other groups that had been going cross country on bikes - like us. They did take our picture with our ice cream cones and put it on the wall.  It was neat indeed!

Tomorrow we head about 78 miles to Lordsburg, NM and will most likely have at lay-over day there due to a storm that is coming up from hurricaine Sergio.  We would rather not try to bike in what is predicted to be heavy rains.  We will let you know.
Paul C