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Well it was a lovely 75degrees in Phoenix on X-mas day. Since I have the week off due to company policy and the wife does not work… Nothing better than a few mile motorcycle ride with the little lady.

Riding with the wife is a bit different, as the ride and the togetherness is more important than the kind of road or how fast I can go. Because of that, I notice more than the apex of every corner and notice all the freaking building that is going on west of Phoenix.

Our ride took us from our Phoenix home, out to Surprise Now I always think of Surprise as “Surprise, you live here… what were you thinking”. At one time 7 years ago, Surprise was out in the middle of nowhere. Now Surprise is somewhere without any good roads to get in and out of the darn place.

Leaving Surprise and taking Sun Valley parkway westward, I noticed the immediate end of civilization and the beginning of the Arizona desert. You can see family riding off road motorcycles and ATV’s at spots along the road. But don’t worry, major builders are already clearing ground for new places to put people. Considering these new places are about half the distance from my work to my home, I may end up in one of these places soon.

Sun Valley parkway is a road that was built in the 70’s during the S&L Scandal It’s nice, wide and easy to ride. It takes you down to the western edge of another town called Buckeye. We skated along the city limit of Buckeye by all the relocated cow farms. I wondered how much longer the cow farms would be their, as they just moved from the phoenix west valley 30miles away.

The ride took us down and over a seldom used road, old US-80 though Arlington. At the nice pace we were riding I could take a good look at dam that failed and a bridge along the road that is no more. I got to see all the people waiting outside buckeye prison for x-mas visitation I wondered if these people were waiting outside because they could not go in for fear of some retribution by society. I can’t imagine either going to a prison for the holidays or being inside one of these places.

Once on highway 85 and back up to buckeye we took I-15 home. 3Hrs of riding together and just hanging out.

… Edit: 12/27/05 …

I did a little research to the dam that we drove by.

Seems the dam is called Gillespie Dam that was created in 1921. Then in 1993 a major flood in the Maricopa area caused a 150foot breech in the dam. This breach has not been repaired and it was until recently in 2005 that water flowed though the breach. At this time, there are studies being conducted to decide if it is possible to build a new dam on the old foundation.

Attached are some pictures I got off the web about AZ-80. The road has a lot of history and I recommend reading on the following webpages
www.arizonaroads.com
www.myrvadventures.com
www.azhistoricalimages.org

Some cool images

This bridge failed and they did not repair it. Just ran the road though the wash and forgot it ever existed.