Round trip to Florence

Monday night we were walking at dusk. Pretty, isn't it? We had drinks and a planning session for the ride next morning to Florence. Departure was at 0700, which meant getting up at 0600. That's the first time since I retired that I have gotten up that early. Cool, eh? Gotta get up early to have fun.


So, Tuesday we loaded the bikes and went out to breakfast in Oro Valley, which is about 30 miles north of here. We learned a better way to pad bicycles when you're putting multiples on a bike rack: pipe wrap with masking tape to secure it. Works like a champ, it's a beauteous thing.
This is Jim at breakfast.


This is the Tom Mix monument on the way to Florence. Click here for information about Tom.


We had great whanging tail winds on the way to Florence. We averaged 17.8 mph, even with the climbing. We felt young again. This is the hotel in Florence, the directions to get there were "it's across from the prison."


The Florence prison, right across the street from the hotel.


The entrance, no tours were scheduled for that day.


Jim sitting in the motel court yard, enjoying not being on a bicycle seat and being clean.


After getting cleaned up, we drove down town looking for food. We went to this saloon and had beer and sandwiches. Jim and I split a cold meat loaf sandwich was was pretty dang good.


More downtown, this is the American Legion hall.


A big building on Main Street.


Main Street.


Offices of the newspaper.


The General Store.


The residents of the prison make things. This is where they sell those things. There were some beautiful carved leather pistol cases.


The group! Jan is in the purple sweatshirt, she drove sag for us and a fabulous job of it she did. This is a sub-set of the Long Riders.

Today dawned windy as hell for the return. Really really windy. It was, of course, a headwind. I rode for awhile and decided it was not fun and got in the van. After awhile it died down a little, and I rode some more, but then I got back in the van. It was not a good bike day for me. Several of the Long Riders rode all the way back to the RV park for total mileage of 70 some miles today. These people just impress the hell out of me with their ability to stay on a bike for a long time. Jim did 45 miles each day.
This was today. Look at the the trucks! This is Bill, he's a really strong fast rider.


More pictures from the desert.



So, that was the trip to Florence and back.

And so, I'd like to leave today's post with my favorite picture from Tuesday.