That morning, 6 trucks raced toward the meeting point on Memorial Day 2011, for their chance to be a winner in the coveted “first 3 trucks prize” contest.
Myself, Chuck S. and Steve T. (with Tonia) were awarded wonderful US flags to adorn our vehicles for an Epic ride to Sheep’s Bridge in Central AZ.
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Bob K, Jon C. (with his Mom) and Diana M. (with niece & dogs) joined us and we headed north on I-17 to our Bloody Basin Rd. exit.
Once we hit dirt on Bloody Basin Road, the surrounding terrain reminded my 2 passengers of being in the African Savanna, with the vast fields of dry grasses and little other vegetation. The scenery quickly changed as we proceeded forward a few miles and started to descend in altitude back into Sonoran Desert life. Being a desert dweller for 17 years now, the legendary Gila Monster is something I have yet to see, and being tail gunner on this trip I will have to wait a while longer as the 2 specimens we observed eluded me.
After a good 30 miles of mildly rough dirt roads and excellent scenery we arrived at the Sheep’s Bridge. It was a fantastic day for setting up for lunch by the river and enjoying some good old rock skipping contests. Following lunch, we took a nice stroll across the bridge and hiked to the top of a rocky hill for some great scenery. While walking across, several of us witnessed two or three fairly large turtles enjoying a mid-day swim in the river.
One thing ever-present on our minds was the missing participant, Steve Perrin who much earlier had successfully communicated to us via cell phone, that he had reached the bloody basin road late and would catch up to us. After a long while he eventually reached the bridge himself and was greeted by the trip in progress. He was very relieved to find us, as his lone and inaugural off road trip was a stressful one.
Steve decided he would rather be a passenger at this point, so Jon volunteered to drive his vehicle. Jon’s mom was already doing a great job driving the Disco, and she handled the rest of the drive to Cave creek through Seven Springs with ease. What felt like a 50 mile point to point trip was surprisingly right around 115 miles from the meeting point to air-up in Cave Creek.
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So, 100 plus miles later we arrived in Cave Creek where we all aired up and said our goodbye’s after a tiring day. My Memorial Day dinner at Pei Wei never tasted so good.
See all the photos here.
– Pierre
