Fairs

After the Apache Rez there was little for 10 or twenty miles and then we came upon town after small town. Also along the way for about 10 miles were signs for "Taylor's Freeze" about every half mile detailing every aspect of the menu. On hot days ice cream is almost unbeatable so we stopped into check it out. Then after an hour or so break we continued on to Safford and rode right past a temple. I had heard of the Gila valley temple but had no idea that we would ride right past it. We stopped to maybe go in but we had just missed the session and the next one wasn't for two hours. Instead we headed on to Thatcher where we hung out at a McDonalds. Actually McDonalds is one of my favorite places to stop since they have free wifi, usually we can find an outlet to charge our phones, and now to top it off MONOPOLY!! also drinks are only a dollar. So I bought a drink and won a quarter pounder. Pretty good investment I think. We were at McDonalds for a while because Drover found someone on couchsurfing.com who was willing to put us up for the night. We arrived while they were still at work and waited out the rest of the time. Our host was a primary teacher named Libby who has been living in the area a couple years. Our arrival also coincided with the arrival of the Graham county fair. Libby and another teacher in the area by the name of Kristen even got us in free! It was awesome. So we checked out the fair and the highlights were our hosts/fairguides, a hypnotist show two crazy guys selling some of the best kettle corn I've ever had. Also another near highlight was a comedian? (I'm not sure what else to call him) that did lip syncing to semi comedic songs. He said he performs over 120 times a year but I have no idea how. Also no idea how you get popular telling really bad jokes and lip syncing to other peoples songs. Mili and Vanili. I don't know how to tie them in but I want to make sure everyone knows I'm mocking them to. Anyway the fair was a blast. The next morning we went to breakfast with Libby and Kristen and caught the town parade with 4 marching bands and a handful of interesting floats and a lot more I couldn't understand. After the parade we said goodbye to our new friends and biked out to our next destination Duncan. We had kinda outran a storm coming into Safford and on our way out it looked like it was going to catch up. The wind stayed mostly on our backs and we caught a little rain but nothing bad at all. Watching a storm come over the desert is pretty cool. I brought a long a mp3 player (are they even called that anymore?) on the trip and have been exploring the dark recesses of my music selection and on this ride I was peddling along when music from Once Upon a Time in the West and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly came streaming through. I'm pretty sure everyone knows my affection for western themed film bit this took the enjoyment to a new height. My grin was hitting mile post markers on either side of the road. If Clint Eastwood would have driven by and tipped his hat I probably would have ridden into an oncoming semi to end life at the top. I'll talk about other music later.
We were climbing little by little into Duncan and finally topped out at and coasted down the hill into the tiny town. The population sign said 2000 but I was informed it was more like 700. It has been around since the mid 1880's and looked so cool with white lampposts and the western style store fronts. Just before riding into town I heard Drover coming upon on me when I thought "why is he in such a hurry? Also why is he barking?" I turned around to discover a ferocious dog, not Drover, gaining on me. I hurled an insult at that I think was technically correct even though I didn't have time to ascertain the dogs gender. I increased my speed from 12 mph to 16.5 at which point the dog decided that it wasn't worth the effort and turned around to bark at Drover. I'm sure bringing down a biker is just one rung lower than getting hit by a car in dog toughness hierarchy and was glad to disappoint. As we were riding through town looking for a place to camp we came up upon an art store/visitor center which to date has been the best find on the trip. Inside Alan and Sharon greeted us warmly showed us the art work for sale the criteria being: 1 it is local, 2 locals made it. They told us we could camp in the park across the parking lot. While talking we discovered that Sharon had gone to the same college as us and that there was a farmers market in the park we were camping in the next morning. We set up camp and got ready for sleep being very aware of the drop in the temperature. It had been getting cool since our night on the Apache reservation but that night it was very cool and got down in the low thirties. We stayed warm though through our expert status as cold weather campers and I was happy that the colder weather gear I brought along didn't end up just being dead weight the whole trip.