Day 35 - Pima, AZ, to Duncan, AZ.....First day

Up early and set out for Duncan, about 47 miles away. Figured I would do two 20 mile days, and get to Duncan early the morning of the third day. Pima was still asleep this early Sunday morning, and I was the only one in town. Between Pima and Duncan are 3 small places.....Thatcher, Safford, and Solomon. I wanted to update the blog, so figured I could maybe find a place in one of these towns. The road to Thatcher is more cotton, irrigated of course.

When I reached Thatcher, found a Springhill motel that advertised "wi-fi", so asked the woman on the front desk if I could use it for a while. She said sure, I could sit in the breakfast area as long as I wanted. I got all set up, and the woman running the breakfast area asked if I wanted breakfast. I declined, having had a biscuit earlier......but, nice of her to ask. I used the computer for a couple of hours, and set out to Safford.

Safford is a little larger than Thatcher, and it was lunch time, so stopped by Subway for lunch. Then went to the auto parts place to get some grease for the axles on the cart, and set out for Solomon. Still hadn't filled my coolers, so stopped at the only store in Solomon and bought some ice and other things. The woman running the store remarked it was supposed to rain today, and the clouds coming our way seemed to have some moisture in them. So, I set out to outrun the rain.

Along the way, saw several interesting markers for historic happenings in the area. One described the "Army of the West", and the role it played in the history of the area. The marker said Kit Carson was a scout for the army. Rain continued to close in on me from 3 sides: directly behind, off to my right, and to my left. Didn't seem like any way to avoid my first rain of the trip, so I decided to find a campsite, and get in the tent. Although I spent a couple of hours at the motel earlier, still had a good day.

Found a site, and was pushing the cart there, when I walked through a patch of cacti, about 4-6" tall. Never saw them because of the cart, but ran my left foot right in the middle. Boy, did that hurt! Spent the next 30 minutes or so pulling the spines out of my toes and shoe. Lesson learned here. Rain, which pretty much had me surrounded, was starting to go off in other directions. Maybe had a few drops on me, and 2 beautiful rainbows........one of them I could see the whole thing as it curved over the highway. Started to walk to the end to see if there was a treasure, but too tired.....so settled down for the night. During the night I woke up, and looked out, and the sky was the most beautiful I have seen the whole trip. Totally full of all kinds of stars and whatever, and the Milky Way was right above me. Everyone needs to spend a night in the desert on a clear night.

(The old car I saw in Thatcher. Recognize what it is? Any Nascar fans out there should know.)

Acts of kindness for today:

• the women at Springhill motel who let me use the computer and offered breakfast.




• Any elderly, Apache woman who drove out to find me to talk about my trip. She had seen me a couple of days earlier, but couldn't stop at the time......so came to find me. She wished me a good journey, and said she would pray for a safe trip.