Mingus Mountain

Here's today's Google Earth link. To clear the blue bounding box go to My Places->Temporary Places-> Cottonwood->Tracks->ACTIVE LOG->Bounding Box and clear the checkmark. You'll have to do this each day until I can figure out a work-around.

http://tomerceg.googlepages.com/Cottonwood.kmz

We had another glorious day in the mountains of northern Arizona. Some vets of this tour say these three days in the mountains are their favorite part of the tour. I can see why. The scenery is absolutely magnificent.

After a long false-flat lead-in we started the climb up Mingus Mountain. The higher we climbed the fresher the mountain air smelled. It was a longer climb than yesterday’s trip up Yarnell Canyon, but it was the only real tough section of the day. Today was almost a rest day. I stopped every mile or so to take a picture. Not because I was tired, or because the air got really thin at 7000 feet. No, I just really wanted to take a bunch of pictures…

We had plenty of time today, so we hung out at the summit for awhile and enjoyed the cool mountain breezes. Clouds were already forming up here, so we knew there would be rain later on in the day, although it was unlikely to hit us.

For riders who like descents, the ride down the back side of Mingus Mountain is not to be missed. It’s 12 miles long with nice asphalt and big, sweeping turns. You can just let the wheels fly. (Mom, you should probably skip this next part…) At one point I hit 40 mph, and only slowed down because I caught up to the car in front of me.

We stopped for lunch in an interesting old mining town called Jerome. It’s since morphed into a mini version of Sedona, with lots of art shops and such. We went to a place called the English Kitchen, which is known for it’s pies. The blackberry was pretty tasty.

Since today’s ride was short and we had some extra time, I took advantage of a couple of bonus rides. I rode with Nick, the grandson of 80 year old Jerry. He’s really strong and pushed me on the flat sections toward the end. Oh, who am I kidding? He throttled back rather than leave me in the dust.

We stopped in at the Jerome Historic State Park and checked out some old mining equipment, and then went to the Tuzigoot Indian Museum and saw some 12^th century Indian artifacts. Interesting stuff.

On the way down the hill we rolled through Clarkdale, where Mom was born. I’d guess that a lot of the town hasn’t changed much since then. It has an old-timey feel to it.

After arriving at the hotel I found out that there was a Safeway with a Starbucks just down the street. So I walked down there and watched the thunder and lightning show. It was so impressive that I sat outside under a picnic table umbrella, had my recovery snack of fried chicken and frappuchino, and just watched Mother Nature's show. I'm sure the locals thought I was nuts sitting out there with the winds howling and the thunder cracking (the lightning was well off in the distance), but I never get the chance to see this kind of weather.

All-in-all, another wonderful day of mountain riding. We get one more day of this tomorrow as we ride into Flagstaff, and then our first rest day!