June 22--We've been busy

I'm pretty sure we haven't mentioned the S Fork Trail or Los Burros out of Eager/McNary. It was funny to stop into the one local bike shop in Eager and have the owner not know of a single good trail in the area. He said they were all good, from what he hears (he actually doesn't ride bikes). My advice would be skip the S Fork trail, don't miss the Los Burros trail. LB had a lot of fire road (which I am not a fan) but it also had some awesome fast single track too. We were also looking for a lost black horse and yellow lab while riding this trail. Apparently some guy lost his horse and told his dog to stay with her and then never saw either one of them again. I thought it would be pretty sweet to find a black horse out in the forest, so I packed carrot sticks, some rope and beef jerky for the dog. We didn't find them, but it was still fun to look. I wasn't sure where I was going to store the horse yet anyhow.
The next morning (Friday) we tried the Pine Knolls area, which was all fire roads + misquitos, so we left. Our next destination was Scottsdale AZ to visit my bro. We decided to drive about 100 miles in the wrong direction before looking at the map. We thought it would be funny to call Matt and tell him we we're sorry, but we missed Pheonix and were now in Mexico! We arrived in Scottsdale and headed to a BBQ where we met some of Matt's friends. After a chill night of hanging out, Eric and I stayed at the casino down the street. We never made it in the door, just crashed in the parking lot. Saturday, we got up early and tubed the Salt river. Matt did back-flips off the cliffs while we sat cringing. He thought that was pretty funny. After the float, we tried to go to the lake for some more swimming, but our America the Beautiful pass that is supposed to work at all BLM, Nat forest, etc didn't work in the Tonto Nat forest. So far, that pass is a huge rip! Everywhere we go, they find some way to charge an additional fee that ends up costing more than just paying the day fee. It's really dumb and frustrating. I think we might write an article for Adventure magazine about America the Beautiful--my ass! Anyhow, we didn't end up swimming at the lake, we biked to the pool instead. Matt cooked up an amazing BBQ spread and we chatted for several hours before heading back to the casino. In the AM, we got the oil changed in the big rig and had a delightful breakfast at Matt and Stacey's (roomie) favorite breakfast joint. Eric and I hit the road soon after and headed to Payson AZ. Eric (my brilliant husband) told me about the Highline trail. We shuttled the motorcycle and got ready to ride. We were impressed with the technical awesomeness of the first 6 miles. Fun droppy downhill and challenging rocky climbs. Then, we should have turned around and headed straight back for the motorhome. Instead, we continued with a hike-a-bike section, followed by nearly-unride-able section as the sun began to get close to the horizon. Hmmm, maybe we should turn around, these bushes are awfully sharp. Naaaaa!! Let's keep going. In the pitch dark, we put on our camping headlamps and continued on, but it got so technical, we couldn't ride anymore. Instead, we hiked our bike (sometimes losing the trail) until 11pm. We only freaked out once, when we saw eyes glowing in about 30 feet away that didn't run away when we through a rock at it. AHHH! We were relieved when we finally made the end of the trail and found the motorcycle. Yeah! Now, we had to ride 13 miles in bike shorts down the highway at 11pm! We must have looked insane. When we arrived (frozen to the core) at the motorhome, we toasted our lives with hot cocoa and hit the hay. We had locked the bikes at the picnic area where we finished the trail riding and opted to get them in the AM, which brings me to today. We woke up at first light (5ish) and drove the motorhome down, collected the bikes, and slept some more. We are enroute to Sedona AZ, where we hope to not get too hot and have better luck riding bikes in the light of day. Even though we are fully equipted to ride at night, it is pretty stupid without knowing any of the trails (and dangerous).