Day 10 Globe, America the Beautiful

9/17/19

It starts out with a wonderful breakfast.

Yum yum!!!!!!!

Today the ride is to Globe, about 50 miles away. There is one climb I have conveniently forgotten about but out of memory, out of mind.

Three of us pull into a roadside Cafe for a wonderful breakfast and  take our time enjoying it.We pull out from the Cafe and head Southeast to Lake Roosevelt, a Depression era project still in use. It is hard to imagine this Lake in a desert zone but here it is before us, 20 miles long three miles wide. Water is held by by a dam nestled in the rocky terrain.

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After the Lake we begin our ascent out of the Basin, a 2 hour climb of 7 miles.

I look back from the top at the valley below and wonder at the Beauty.

I turn to the East towards Globe and for the first time on the trip am slowed by 15 mph headwinds which negate a huge chunk of the 7 degree drop.

We are hosted in a church tonight but the most remarkable part of the day is to come.

There is a bar in town, the Huddle , that offers a pot luck dinner every Monday for local folk. We were invited to attend. We had nothing to offer but the owner knew of the ride and asked us to come.

So we did…

Today is a Tuesday but they moved the weekly event just for us. We arrived to the hugs of a tiny Hispanic man wearing cowboy boots and a big hat. “ I’m out fixin the chicken, help yourselves” ….to a table full of Southwest  treats. In wandered women from age 20 to 70, Harley Davidson bikers dressed in old leathers, cowboy types , and people burned by years of the sun in colored garbs.

Suddenly all barriers disappeared and we were just a group of Americans. I stood between the eighty pound Hispanic man hidden by his hat and a 290 lb biker who looked as if he could eat me for lunch.

One biker with a lisp from a tongue ring proudly told me about his cheese potatoes with Southwest seasoning, his son butting in about his Mexican Wedding cake, a type of hot spiced cornbread. Another women joined the conversation to tell us about the her potato salad and suddenly fresh cooked pork and barbecued chicken filled the already overflowing table. I ate for an hour and felt as one with a most diverse group of people.

As I left I was truly touched by the Beauty of America inside that bar.

We are so much more alike than we are different. If only those in charge would learn that.