Riding Through Arizona

From a distance the Sonoran Desert looks green but close up the bushes are thinly spread in the barren sand with a few cactuses dotted about here and there like props in a Western movie. I half expected to see a posse ride across the highway.
The empty road seemed to disappear into the blue heat haze in the far distance while the occasional dust storms sandblasting my helmet and visor and the realisation that I was passing through a USAF bombing range helped to enliven the monotony of the scenery.
I was full of admiration for the tenacity the original pioneers. After 10 miles in this desert on a horse or mule I’d have said “Sod this! I’m off back to the saloon”. They would have made a film about it called: “How the West was Shunned (on Account of it Being Too Hot and Dry and Dull)”.
After 200 miles I finally parked up my bike at the La Siesta Motel in Ajo, Arizona and checked in at 3pm.
Ajo is a very small town but, like many American towns, it is widely spread out and I was alarmed to find that the nearest place to eat was 2.5 miles away. Why, you might ask, would this be a problem? The answer is that I needed a bucket full of beer to wash down the desert sand, so taking the bike wasn’t an option.
It was then I discovered that Ajo had no taxis and the only public transport was a local bus service that had to be booked in advance and only ran till 6.
The motel manager recommended I book the 3.15 bus to Marcella’s Diner and I dashed round like a scalded cat cleaning up for my night out.
When I got on the bus I was told that in fact the last one back would be at 4.20! This being the only option I piled into Marcella’s calling for double orders of beer and the menu.
The meal, if somewhat rushed, was delicious. I had a beef chimichanga, which to my surprise was a sort of Cornish pasty in choux pastry. The home-made green tomato salsa was sensational and Marcella even offered to give me a tub of it to take home. Reluctantly I had to decline as another two weeks in the bike’s panniers wouldn’t have enhanced its flavour.
The bus arrived on schedule and I reluctantly realised that my night out in Ajo was over. The only other passenger was a disabled lady who grumbled all the way back about her neighbour who had just got out of jail in Tucson and was making a nuisance of himself out in the street on his skateboard.
So it wasn’t a normal “night out” but it was a snapshot of life that sticks in my memory forever. And the bus was only 75c each way!