Why Arizona? Why not!!

[Ron]

Glenn and I did a last minute ride on Saturday to Why, AZ.  You may ask why go to Why. No reason, there is not much there but it was a good excuse for a ride. We started at 9 am and were home by 4:10 pm after a 370 mile ride. Most of the day was in the 50's, but we had 70s for a period of time. Nice!
We took old HWY 80 to Gila Bend. There are a lot of cattle yards and farms along the 80. When we passed the cattle yards we experienced that overpowering smell of money, but we survived.




Here are some of the farms in the area




We stopped at the Gillespie Bridge. Shot of the western entrance.  




This picture is what I believe, are White Heron at the Bridge, but they could be Roseate Spoonbill.


We stopped for gas in Ajo and were looking for a place to eat. We met an interesting, unique character at the Ajo gas station. He was from West Virginia and wintering in Ajo. He drives this old beat up 4x4 and he asked me to move his steering back and forth so he could climb under the truck to check his front suspension. After checking it out, he said everything looked fine, but it didn't feel right. He then started to fill up the truck with gas and we asked him if there was a good place to eat in town. At first he said no, but as he started to think about it he gave us 2 places. One was a burger shop and one was a place he referred to as a hippie joint. Both Glenn and I looked at each other and said the" Hippie joint it is".    We thanked him and walked away, but Glenn noticed that as he was putting gas in the top of the tank, it was leaking out the bottom of the tank.  Glenn informs him of this issue and he climbs under the truck again, and states that he has two leaks. He jumps up and states he has to get his truck home right away, climbs into the cab and speeds off.

We then head to the Hippie place which is officially called the Desert Rain Café. There was a sign out front that said Best Burgers. We go in and the place and is it little eclectic and the building across the street had murals painted on them. We sit down and get the menu and Glenn is excited that he was going to get a burger for lunch after reading the sign out front. Well, the menu had no burgers. I told Glenn, they we either high when they did the menu or high when they put the sign out front. We confronted the waitress and she looked at us very strange and said of course we have burgers. We told her that they are not on our menus and she said we must have and old menus. We asked for new menus and she said no we don't have the new menus, but she assured us we could order a Burger. We laughed about this all thru lunch.






I had the Red Chili stew with salad and Agave lemonade and of course, she was not lying Glenn had the burger. The food was very good.





Town square Ajo


As you can see Why, AZ is quite a small place.


Well another great ride in the books and my parting shot of Glenn behind me on the way home.

[Jess from VA]

Nice ride report, thanks.   

In 1990 I rode on the Laughlin River Run from Riverside CA to Laughlin NV.  About 17k riders from all over SoCA (all spread out) took over several of the 5 casinos there for a weekend.  A group of us rode over into AZ for a few hours.  That's my only AZ riding. 

(I wish I had pictures of the billion migrating Monarch butterflies we rode through)  (some long bearded Hog riders with no shields had 20 dead and maimed ones flapping in their beards at the gas stops) (it is really amazing how bad one of those tastes, and they are actually poisonous)

[hubcapsc]

Good pictures, it was almost like being on the ride...

-Mike

[The emperor has no clothes]

"Of course we have burgers"  great story Ron  I'm glad to see we didn't get all of the "unique characters" here.

[Beardo]

Thanks for sharing the ride. Great read. 

[JimmyG]

Always loved Arizona.  Hope I get to ride through it again sometime.

[sandy]

Hey Ron; Those birds are White herons.

[Ron]

Hey Ron; Those birds are White herons.

Yea That's what I thought they were. 

Jess, JimmyG, Beardo, and Hubcapsc If any of you guys make it back to AZ sure would like to share some wind with you all showing you around our state.

[NautiBrit]

Thanks for the ride report and pics Ron. Just down the road from Why is the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. We camped and hiked there for a couple of days and it is well worth seeing. Another reason our desert is so beautiful and alive.

[Ron]

Thanks for the ride report and pics Ron. Just down the road from Why is the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. We camped and hiked there for a couple of days and it is well worth seeing. Another reason our desert is so beautiful and alive.

George
We didn't go that far down to Organ Pipe, but I have been there before. It is a beautiful place that sits right on the border. We only went 30 miles south of Why and then took Indian RT 15 thru the Tohono O'odham Nation rez back to Casa Grande. It was a a great ride.

[JimmyG]

Thanks Ron, that would be great