I could never live in a big city

Well, it's been a while... Again. It's almost hard to find time to write between riding, sleeping, eating, and hours of sitting around doing nothing, but I'm back with another tale of cross country riding. This might get a little long, so if you get bored feel free to close the window and continue mindlessly browsing Facebook.

Day 11:
We (by we I mean I) woke up pretty slow today, knowing that it was going to be a fairly long day ahead of us. We were planning on riding into the heart of Phoenix, but to get there we'd have to spend the whole day on the side of the highway. I remember it being fairly uneventful, the usual dodging glass, tire tread carcasses, and piles of rusty nails while making sure the semi behind you doesn't decide to text his favorite lot lizard, Marg, and forget to give you an extra three inches of space while passing you. I'm not bitter. But, I still found a couple interesting things along the way

The Hassayampa River, known for its limitless supply of fresh water.

Not far from the "river", there was a pretty cool nature preserve that broke up the monotony of the constant deathsert (Everything's dead in the desert. Get it?).

Woah, trees. It's been so long, I had almost forgotten what they look like.

It was great to get out of the desert again. That stuff sort of wears away at your psyche after a while. Finally seeing trees and actual life was great. I could get used to that. Wait, what's that?

Fuck.

So, we ventured back into the desert. I sit here and say it was awful, but truthfully, it was interesting getting to see everything change little by little. Not only landscape, but civilization as well. We had been noticing that at some point, these small towns had a booming economy. Maybe booming is a bad word for it, but there were plenty of skeletons of better times.

Need to close your business? Cover the windows with boards and let it get haunted!

We were getting closer and closer to civilization, you could see subliminal signs of happiness dotting the horizon.

Happy Lane? No thanks, I'll stay on misery highway

After about 40 miles of the highway shoulder, we finally found our way into Phoenix, and we were greeted by this big fucker.

Either he's playing a horn or he's talking the works fastest bong rip.

Finally, Phoenix is our first big city of the trip, besides the start in San Diego. Once we reached the border of city, we immediately noticed the traffic get worse. By worse I mean people started turning into ass holes. By ass holes I mean there was a lot less room between the side of the road and 50mph traffic. But I get it, everyone is in a hurry, so Jerome and I decided to snag some breakfast at a Denny's while we waited for traffic to die down.

Jerome isn't happy unless he's had his GOD DAMN morning coffee.

Once we finished, we started our interesting adventure through the fun filled city of Phoenix. Phoenix is massive. I didn't really expect to spend (literally) 100 miles riding through and around the area, but it was a chance to really experience the city. The side streets were a great alternative to the highway, so we started doing some urban exploring. Lots of nice homes and quiet neighborhoods. Huh, Phoenix isn't that bad. Eventually we wound our way onto a great bike trail that ran right next to the canal. Holy crap, Phoenix is getting better. Jerome is telling me how he wants to come spend some time out here when he retires. Then we roll up on this bad boy.

The university of Phoenix stadium seats nearly as many people as my hometown's population. Furickin huge

Jerome is in love. Football, bike trails, and snowless winters, it's the old man's wet dream. But then things start getting interesting as we venture further down the bike trail.

Cool trail, but fences are starting to fall apart and back yards are getting... Cluttery. It's cool, sometimes people need to store 16 washing machines in their back yards

Things are quickly changing. We were noticing that the neighborhoods were quickly getting more and more... Interesting.

Oh, that's livestock, in someone's back yard... In the middle of Phoenix. Huh.

And, before we knew it, we were in full blown slum. My giveaway was when I saw someone roll past in a low rider with a shaved head covered in tattoos. We saw lots of homeless, lots of trash, and lots of "art"

Banksy strikes again! You can see here he's trying to perfect his senseless gibberish graffiti.

For some reason, I decided we should stop here and get a hotel. I found a La Quinta (I think that's Spanish for "next to Denny's") and we hunkered down for the night. Definitely went to the Denny's five feet from our hotel room so we didn't have to venture too far into the wild. That night, we engaged every lock on our door and went into survival mode, consisting of tightly pulled curtains and whisper conversations in order to prevent any attention drawn to us. We survived the night.

Day 12:
"Up and at 'em Kevin, let's get the fuck out of here." We jumped out of bed and hit the road. We had zero issues, saw a couple people that looked like they were having a pretty bad hangover, but nothing unusual. Within probably five minutes of riding, we found ourselves out of the rough part, signified by this private Catholic school campus.

I was thinking of saying something offensive, but I don't need to add fuel to my 'goin to hell' fire.

It was crazy how fast the change came. It was almost like we crossed a street and we were out of the rough parts. Everything was turning into Pleasantville right before our eyes.

Even the graffiti was suddenly becoming very... White.

Thankfully, we still got a little taste of scum before we left it for good.

"Le Girls Gentleman's Club: cold beer and fantasies inside." Thank God. I was just fantasizing about cold beer. Jerome said no.

Our ride through Phoenix as we got closer to our host/family, Kim and Jim, was pretty cool. Things got really fancy, I don't really know how else to describe the downtown area of Tempe. We stopped at cute lil' ol' breakfast joint called 'Ncounter' for a little fuel.

Shortly after finishing my connect the dots masterpiece I wrote 'Ncounter My Nuggets!' on the turkeys belly. I could feel the waitresses eyes roll.

20 miles of smooth city riding later we found ourselves at Kim and Jim's for the night. They were amazing for putting up with us schmucks on such short notice. Jim was our host for the first night, and after seeing his license plate, Jerome had to get a picture with him.

Jim's height personified his kindness

We got to have a great meal, catch up with long lost family, and crawl into bed for a days well earned rest.

Day ƐƖ:
Today was a rest day. We planned on laying low and taking a much needed day off. Of course, day off, to me, meant waking up at the crack of dawn to go on a group ride with some Phoenix cyclists. I talked to someone on the road about meeting the group at 6:30, but the location was an hour away. I rode out to it with a couple minutes to spare, and without fail knowing my luck, no one was there. So, I jumped into a McDonald's, ate my sorrows away with a couple McGriddle sandwiches, and went on my own "get to know your area" ride. By the way, holy fucking shit those McGriddles are so good. Allegedly they are the worst thing for you on the menu. Allegedly those people who say that can lick my... Oh yeah, sorry mom. So the get to know my area ride was fun!

Mormon temple. I only know two things about Mormons: they have lots of money and lots of wives. When I finish this ride I'm converting

The rest of the day was spent hanging out with my other long lost fam Kim and catching up on some rest. If Kim and Jim read this, thanks for being you, you guys. We loved getting to stay with you.

Day 14:
I'm tired as shit, I'll write it tomorrow morning.