Where do we stay at night?

I

Wonder where a cyclist might stay each night while crossing the Southwest on the Southern Tier? For us it varies, but most nights we bike until it almost dark and then start looking for a camping spot. We are never sure where it will be, but fortunately we seem to always find something suitable. And often with a great view. We love the western climate because we can often just lay our our pads and sleeping bags right under the stars. One of our favorite places was west of Wickenberg, AZ. But the next morning as we pulled out onto the main road we realized we had rear flats on each of our bikes.  We pulled out the tubes to patch them- one culprit was a cactus prickler and the other was a bit of wire that went right through Mark's Kevlar tube liner. Must have happened on I8 the day before. Lots of blowouts on the side of the highway and not much room to avoid them.

Camping spot west of Wickenberg, CA

Fixing our flats

Another unique form of housing in the cycling community is a network called Hot Showers.com. Folks sign up to host cyclists in their home listing what they will provide- shower, bed, camping spot in yard, meals, etc. The cyclist looks ahead and gauges where they might be on a given night. Mark uses this app

on his phone and so far we have had 2 great nights with host families- Errin & Jonathan Heuberger and four children in Alpine, CA and Dawn & Gene Ziegler in Phoenix, AZ. I guess you could equate it to Couch Surfing or Trail Angels in the hiking community. We hope to do the same someday for traveling cyclists around Wintergreen. The Transamerica Bike Trail goes right by us.

Gene and Dawn with one if their two tandem bikes. They love to use Hot Showers themselves on their many biking treks. In return they host cyclists that come through their area in Phoenix

Two other overnight options are camping at fire stations and churches. We were very grateful two late nights when the light ran out and we had no where to camp. Fire stations in Pine Valley, CA and Apache Junction, AZ were amenable to us pitching a tent on their sites.

The next day leaving Apache Junction Fire Station

We have also camped at San Carlos Apache Reservation and eaten a great meal at reservation casinos. Thanks for the tip Rick Harris! Last of all hotels are an option, but we rarely go that way. 

So we have left Arizona on a very long day of climbing 6000 ft into the Lue Mountains to enter the Apache National Forest and make our way into New Mexico. Hope your spring is going well and in full bloom as the desert flowers are out here.