Ok, we left off around 10pm of the same day we saw Lake Powell and the Grand Canyon. We blew past every campground in southern AZ and are heading south. It becomes clear Gord and I have made a misjudgement. At the base of the mountains leading out of Prescott is the desert. Not an arid expanse of several miles, but the desert you see people staggering around in in the movies. We reach the outskirts of Wickenburg and I spy two sheriff's deputies lingering behind the ONLY gas station in these parts. I roll up and kill the bike. Cop #1 unholsters his gun and cop #2 orders me to kill my light and shines his in my face. They do not like me. I turn on the Arkansas charm.
I forgot to mention I can turn on the stereotypical Arkansas thing like a light switch. We're poor but we aren't morons (most of us anyways). I start rambling like a hillbilly "Uh, we uh rode these motorcycles from Arkansas and can't find no where to sleep. We were thinkin about sleeping in the desert but it don't seem safe. We need yer help." Tell any cop you need their help, let em dominate, and the guns go back in the holsters.
Turns out sleeping in the desert (which we did actually think about) is a bad idea around here. There are snakes, scorpions and some of the people apparently will kill you and take your stuff if they see you. They tell us about a small state park (!) heading towards California. Jackpot! We get directions and head West on state HWY 60 towards Wenden and Alamo Lake state park.
Someday I will die. When I die I will either go to heaven or hell. I don't know what heaven looks like, but I have been to hell. Hell is the ride to Alamo Lake state park in southern Arizona. We are blasting through the desert and see exactly one car and, believe it or not, a guy on a chopper on the entire ride from Wickenburg to Wenden. We reach Wenden and see this sign: Alamo Lake State Park 38. Gord looks at me with a wild eye, it was bizarre. I'm officially in a bad acid trip. It's about 1am and we head towards Alamo Lake.
The ride out is 38 miles North into the interior desert. No houses (other than I think one or two empty abandoned ones), no services of ANY KIND including cellular, narrow two lane road with cattle tracks every mile and sinkholes that bring your stomach into your mouth. 38 miles doesn't sound like much, but we were rocketing into the pitch black, away from any kind of civilization with total abandon. It really felt like a death march.
We finally made it, pitched the tent in the first campsite we saw and started a huge ass fire. There was a log clearly left for sitting on that we burned. It burned all night. In the morning we woke to find we were in some abortion of a state park. This was an attempt by the state to create a recreation area that went totally awry. People of AZ, your tax dollars are keeping a state park running at the gates of hell. Also, at 6am wild quail surrounded the tent making the most annoying call I've ever heard. On 4 hours sleep we got up, packed and exploded out of the park. I did at least 75 every inch of the way back to the highway. We stopped for a couple pics. Enjoy the sport pants, I didn't give a crap any more.
Having made it out of that debacle we stopped for some fruit at a tiny grocer in Wenden. Local youth give us the eye and an old lady tells me, verbatim, 'you boys don't want to be broke down around here'. Rolling out of town we see a sign for camping in the city limits. I am disgusted.
Riding through the warm desert air in my sport pants we hook up with i-10 and California suddenly reveals itself. We have made it. My family can all kiss my butt, I made it to California on my old ass motorcycle.
Gord made it too. But Gord doesn't make it to Los Angeles...
