Day off: Phoenix

 Nice calm zero day, after yesterday's helter skelter. One sad note, the decision by my roommate Terry that he was going to drop out of the tour. He has had trouble physically, didn't ride two of the days -- though he did tough it out yesterday. He is 80 after all, and had a hip replaced a year and a half ago, and he believes that forced inactivity weakened him. He will be missed, a sweet quiet Georgian. He was able to get a rental car one way home, but will take two weeks to hit a few national parks and make the best of it.

Chuck's brother drove in and took Chuck and me to REI (not as wonderful as the flagship store on Portland), and then we had lunch and he dropped us off in downtown Phoenix. We went to the Heard Museum, which focuses on the arts and crafts of Native peoples of the Southwest. Didn't know that Barry Goldwater collected Katsina dolls, donated to the museum. Best exhibit was about the experience of native children forcibly placed in Indian boarding schools. Very powerful and disturbing.



Rode the light rail back to Mesa, which took over an hour, past various stadiums and universities. Astonishing sprawl in these here parts.





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