I felt the need to ride this morning, so I pointed the Goldwing toward Bisbee, Arizona, an old mining town 95 miles southeast of Tucson, down near the Mexican border.
No sooner did I put the kickstand down in front of the Bisbee Coffee Co. than a friend walked up, Donna from Phoenix. She was in Bisbee for a Hash House Harrier red dress charity run. I should have known she’d be there, because she’s the actual “lady in a red dress” who showed up at a HHH run in San Diego back in 1987 and inspired what has evolved into a worldwide HHH activity; namely, grown men and women putting on red dresses and running around making fools of themselves for charity.
Too often, when I go for motorcycle rides, I fail to stop and enjoy the towns and sights I encounter along the way. But after running into Donna I decided to stop and smell the roses, so I stayed at the coffee shop a while to see who or what else might turn up. Glancing over to my left, I saw this rig:
The motorcycle’s from Tasmania, and it didn’t take long to find the rider with the Aussie accent sitting at a nearby table on the sidewalk in front of the coffee shop. His name was Greg, and he was from Launceston, Tasmania. He’d flown his bike from Hobart to Anchorage and was making his way to Panama. He’d already ridden through Alaska, Canada, and the western USA, and was trying to get through customs at Douglas, Arizona so he could continue his trip through Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama.
He was trying to make it down Mexico Highway 2 to Casas Grande in Chihuahua by dark, but had been delayed by customs on the American side and told to return at noon when the cargo division opened for business. Poor guy had done his research and had all the right paperwork for his international ride; his misfortune this morning was bumping into a customs officer who had never dealt with this kind of paperwork before. I hope he got through!
I’m jealous as hell, by the way. Imagine taking a ride like that! Oh to be young again, boo hoo, etc.
After I talked with Greg, I looked over to the right and saw this guy setting up an old-school camera:
So I had to go talk to him about his camera. He was taking photos of a famous view, the same one in the first photograph of this entry, looking north up Tombstone Canyon Street in Bisbee. His camera’s from the 1950s, and he says they still make them. I guess there is, as yet, no digital substitute for large format film, and that’s why the pros still use it. So I took his photo with my little digital, just to give him a reality check.
Bisbee’s elevation is 5,300 feet above sea level, and the temperature had only reached 80°F by 11:30 AM, when I rode north to Tombstone for lunch (I know a little biker bar there where they serve great burgers, but it’s too scary for the touristas so you never have to wait in line). Tombstone’s a thousand feet lower than Bisbee and it was 90°F at half past noon when I headed home. The downside to summer morning rides in southern Arizona is the home stretch, because you’re headed back down into the heat sink that is Tucson (elevation 2,400′). It was just over 100° F as I pulled into my driveway, ran inside, stripped off my jeans and long sleeved riding shirt, and cranked the AC down. Thank god I don’t live in Phoenix (elevation 1,100′), where it’s always ten degrees hotter than Tucson!
All in all, a great motorcycle morning, and I vow to stop and smell the roses more often.