Rambles

Traveling

On Saturday, January 10, 1998, I rode my bike to Catalina State Park for the first time. I left my apartment at 11:00 AM and rode into a partly cloudy day. It felt nicely comfortable. Just cool enough to need a windbreaker. This was my maiden out of town trip on a bike. By touring standards it wasn't very far but I felt quite daring to be heading out so far by myself. I checked the tires and packed my daypack carefully. With my usual lack of proper touring standards, I was riding my mountin bike with a plastic crate mounted on the rear to dump my pack in. Not classy, but it works for me.

I rode a mile and a half to Oracle and waited impatiently for the bus. Oracle was US-89 before I-10 came through. At one time it went from the Mexico to Canada and saw some beautiful sights. It curved around the Grand Canyon and up through Utah's colored rocks and Salt Lake City and became the main street of Yellowstone. From there it ran through the mountains to Canada. It's still US-89 a large part of the way, but this part has been renamed AZ-77, that heads up to Globe.

I was keeping my fingers crossed that both the bike slots weren't full. The bus pulled up with only one bike (thank goodness) and the owner or the bike got off the bus to remove it and ride off so I lifted my bike up on the rack then entered the bus. There were quite a few people on the bus, most of whom got off at Tucson Mall to either shop or transfer to other busses. We headed up Oracle to Ina where I got off.

This is in the foothills, on the edge of the Catalinas and the highway curves around the Catalinas. From Ina there's a slight climb for a mile, then it's downhill to the park.