Day 4 - Sierra Vista, AZ to Sylmar, CA

648 miles.  2 stamps.

I left Sierra Vista right at 7:00 and made my way at first north, then west and south, going through Patagonia, AZ.  I cut off going to Nogales.  Streets and Trips had suggested River Road North, which turned out to be dirt and a dead end.  I had traveled about a mile on this road before turning around.  Consulting the GPS, I found River Road South, on the other side of the river, that was paved, smooth, and a good shortcut to use to avoid Nogales.  I soon stopped at Tumacacori National Historic Park, which would be my last stamp for this trip.  The ruined mission is quite interesting.  The domed altar area did preserve the plaster and the paints on the inside.  There also was some graffiti carved into the plaster dating from the late 1800's. I spent a small bit more than my 1/2 hour that was allocated.  I also did pick up another stamp for the Juan Bautista de Anza NHT.  Tumacacori is the southern end of this trail.  The northern end is at the Presidio in San Francisco, which I plan to visit in May.

It was just after 9:00 when I continued north on I-19 for the 570 miles to get back to Sylmar.  This freeway is interesting in that all of the mileage signs, mileposts, and exit numbers are in kilometers, not miles.  I found myself doing the math to convert to miles as I headed north to Tucson.  There also were 3 places were the Border patrol had signs ready to be set up so they could have a checkpoint.  They seemed to be getting one ready as I passed through this Easter morning.

Soon I was back on I-10.  I decided to take the Phoenix bypass, which means that you head 50 miles west on I-8 to Gila Bend, and then got north on AZ-85 to get back to I-10.  I was hoping to avoid the traffic in Phoenix.  This turned out to be a bit of a drawback for me.  I-8 was so empty of traffic, that I found my speed creeping up.  I would look down and realize that I was going 95, and reset my throttle hand back to 80.  But after 10 or so minutes, I would be back to 95.  I missed having other cars to help me gauge my speed.  I was within 5 miles of getting off of I-8, when I rounded a curve and came upon an AZ Highway Patrolman.  Oops.  He pulled onto the highway after I passed him and pulled me over.  He had clocked me at 90.  He was a very friendly fellow.  We talked a bit about my trip, where I was going and where I had been, along with some other things, like riding a motorcycle in LA.  I was very lucky, I only received a warning from him.  He told me to keep the speed down and to remember that in AZ it is a felony to exceed 85.

When I got back near I-10, I took some parallel roads instead of getting immediately back on.  Eventually the paved roads do run out and I had to get onto the freeway again.  This time there was quite a bit of traffic so I didn't have the same problem that I had earlier.

About 20 miles after crossing into California, I came upon a traffic jam.  Being back in CA, I was able to split the lanes.  A truck had flipped over.  One of the two lanes on the freeway was shut down.  The backup was about 2 miles.  It was great to get around all of that.

At 6:20, I pulled into my garage, capping off a 2,008 miles of fun (well except for the incident today).  Now to clean off the bugs and replace the front tire.  And then it'll be on to the next trip!

Back to Day 3