Who Woulda Thunk??

Friday August 27. I've driven about 10000 kilometres and only had about 15 minutes of rain. But now that I am in the desert?!.... I was dodging thunderstorms last night and again today. It rained on me a couple of times, but not enough to get really wet. I even changed my route and decided to head further south when the road I wanted to take through the Sonoran Desert National Monument had been flooded out by what they call "monsoons" here. So, I headed almost to the Mexican border to visit Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument.

Drove through gorgeous desert scenery, again along lightly traveled roads. The storms made for dramatic skies and also helped keep the heat down to a comfortable riding temperature. Rode past lots of saguaro cactus and palo verde bushes until I arrived at Organ Pipe.

After my visit I left because another storm was heading my way. I had to ride north along the same rode I rode in on. I had heard that there were problems with illegal immigrants and drug dealers crossing the desert here to get into the States. As I turned east on highway 86 I noticed two guys jump out of a car that was stopped on the opposite side of the road, facing me, and run into the desert.

As I passed the car, I noticed that the back end was crushed and the bumper was hanging on the road. A couple of hundred yards up the road and on my side of the road were two SUV's and a motorcycle. They flagged me over just as three more SUV's raced past us towards the stopped car. The motorcycle was damaged and laying on its side. The guys who flagged me over were border patrol agents and they wanted me off the highway so the other cars could chase the guys. Turns out that the car had failed to stop or ran from a border patrol check point and a high speed chase ensued. The three vechicles had pulled over to get out of the way of the chase. But the car sideswiped the first SVU and smashed into the stationary motorcycle. Nobody was hurt, but the officers were really pissed. Anyway, after all the rest of the border patrol vehicles roared by (about 10 of them), they allowed me to continue on my way.

So, it's all a matter of timing. 1) five minutes earlier and I would have missed the guys putting up the sign saying that the road through the Sonoran Desert National Monument was washed out and 2) five minutes earlier and I would have ridden right into that chase.