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Day Five – Made it to Arizona

Pink Catcus

I haven't identified this cactus yet, but it was growing along I-10 in the Dome Rock Mountains. Click on image to enlarge.

28 March 2011. Quartzsite, Arizona isn’t my model of an ideal town. It’s a town of truck stops, fast-food restaurants, and—apparently—it hosts the largest gathering of RV’ers in the world. Each January, 750,000 to one million people converge on the town, mostly in RVs, for a week of massive flea markets and whatever else RV’ers do. The town is also well known in the rock & mineral crowd, do to the rich geology here. (I’m okay with that!) Just last week there was apparently some huge show; this is clearly the town’s angle, and I guess they do it well.

But all those people aren’t here right now—which is just fine with me! I arrived late afternoon, coasting down from the I-10 snaking corridor through the Dome Rock Mountains that lie between the Arizona border and here. After 84 miles yesterday, I took a more relaxed pace today, logging 49 miles (though my bicycle odometer/speedometer seems to crap out now and then—I’ll look down at it and see 0 mph, when I’m fairly certain that I’m going somewhat faster than that).

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