Phoenix continued

We spent a good chunk of yesterday getting into Phoenix and most of today getting out of it. Gotta say, though, it was some pretty sweet urban riding. We were mostly on pretty good bike lanes and bike paths and very flat. We rode through a beautiful urban park in Scottsdale. It was the type of place where I would have liked to have a day to spend just people watching. The weather is still glorious. Our last 6 miles to Gold Canyon was on US 60. Our cue sheet said to expect a rough shoulder with wide rumble strips. What a pleasant surprise! The shoulder was great. And even better - the traffic was bumper to bumper (seemingly the entire city of Phoenix heading east to the Renaissance Festival) and we were moving waaaay faster than the highway traffic! I was first in today, even beat the support van! I had an agenda, though. Deanna and Mike from Airdrie are vacationing down here and they drove out to our hotel to meet me for lunch. They arrived about 15 minutes after I did. We had a good visit and I then followed lunch with a pint of Ben & Jerry's Cherry Garcia ice cream which was then followed by another gourmet dinner prepared by our chef Linda. Another great day in paradise!