Truly, the USA seems to really do a thing when they decide to do it!
I rode through Phoenix Arizona and the highways are all super wide and super smooth and with over-passes and entry ramps and exit ramps and interchanges and well... Its all so clean and crisp and fast :)
Wide highway with almost no traffic ahead of me... Easy going :)
And no traffic behind me either :)
Even the service stations here are super clean and organised... Not even a drip of oil or spec of dirt on the concrete pad of this place... Im glad I fixed my oil leak or Id feel guilty messing it up for them :)
And inside the little shop at the service station, the range of stuff available is amazing!
Literally dozens of varieties of soft drinks in bottles!
And not four or eight varieties of drink at the fountain dispenser... This place had twenty different flavours!
And why not buy yourself a lottery ticket while your getting gas... There were over twenty different varieties of multi-million dollar lottery tickets in this dispensing machine for five bucks each :)
And what the heck... May as well pick yourself up a nice Automatic weapon for "home defence" while your here in Arizona !
Yep, Dozens of machine guns available for the discerning gun enthusiast.
No really! Dozens and dozens!...
And reasonably priced too... Pick up a base model machine gun for under $1000. Or, a shotgun for about $600, a hand gun will cost you about $700, and a huge top-end 0.50 calibre sniper rifle that can "pick off" that "home intruder" at a cool 2.5km range (thats the record kill distance with one of these things!) will set you back about $8000!
And there are suppressors (silencers) for all these guns at about $400 each too... Well, you wouldnt want to keep the neighbours kids up after 10pm on a school night now would you...
All so very civilised !
Civilised as they see it but Im afraid, I seem to have a bit of a different definition :)
I rode on out of the city looking for a suitable camp site (I cant afford hotels in the US so Im now camping till I get back to Vancouver :)
As I headed along the highway, I passed more than a few Cactus plants that bore witness to what happens when you are a poor plant (That is probably well over a hundred years old) and you have the misfortune to be located within about 40m of the side of an Arizonan highway (built long after it sprouted from its seed of course) when an "irresponsible" gun owner decides to have some target practice!! (Hows that for a nice run-on sentence! :)) )...
... And the scars never heal over of course!But actually, Im feeling more "forgiving" in my outlook to what others want to do with their money and time these days, so if the Arizonans want to own lots of guns, then thats their business...
And I do acknowledge that there is definitely something very deeply seated within us each that makes guns very seductive... I think its the primitive hunting instinct of "hitting a moving target". And the power and sound of firing guns is also very seductive (You should try an Automatic gun... wow!).
But, the sad part is that shooting things is only ever a "destructive" act!... Its like grafitti or arson or chopping down trees, breaking windows, throwing bottles, or burning things... Its so easy to destroy things and so much harder to create... Like Robbert Openheimer said just after they set off that first atomic bomb at Trinity test site... "Behold, I am become the destroyer of worlds"... Yes, the destroyer... But nowhere near the creator as yet!!
The act of destruction seems so immature or juvenile when compared to the far more mature act of creation... or so it seems to me!
So, the Arizonans have their guns as they want them, but I guess I hope they will figure out that there are a bunch of very anti-social consequences associated with some of their favourite "freedoms" eventually...
... No rush... Take your time :))
Next day as I rode along through the scorching heat, I was nearly out of fuel and Id foolishly just driven straight through the last largish town without even considering my fuel status!
But, there was a little turn-off to a place that wasnt on my map called "Lost Lake", and it said they had gas there... So I guess thats where Im going :)
And I drive in and its a really nice little community of weekend cabins and trailers located on the banks of a river out here in the desert (very eastern edge of California). Its mostly a weekend resort for people from the big city (LA area) over near the coast.
And it seems that what most people want to do on their weekends here is"Play with Power Toys".
Even the little electric golf carts that everyone uses to drive around the place in get the "treatment"!Every one has jet-skis and power boats! The powerboats are all tiny little things with massive V8 engines driving "jet" units for use in the shallow river.
Not much boat, and lots of engine :)
Big V8.
Jet unit.
Its all about speed and power and loud exhausts... You never have mufflers... Its always just chrome plated header pipes, so you get the MAXIMUM sound volume from your engine!
But a boat is a boat and its for playing on the water... and thats what they are all doing... Blasting around on the river in the middle of the desert :)
And everyone did seem to be having fun with all the noise and fancy toys :)
I got no real problem with it... Its the whole community there so they are not upsetting the neighbours etc, and if thats how people want to spend their time and money here then thats fine. I dont think they were messing up the environment at all (In this case, since the river banks are either all artificial or well protected by banks of reeds), and they were all very friendly and happy.
But, I managed to get gas for my bike, and even got to use their public shower facilities too. So, after a bit of a look around at this little community of weekend "motor-heads" :), I was all clean and gassed up, so I headed off down the highway...
Back out into the desert...
... and on into the mountains...
