Update 2/26
Yesterday was another beautiful day for cycling; in fact, for just about anything. The high temperature was in the low-to-mid 80s, it was clear throughout the day, and there were only occasional periods in the latter part of the day when there were noticeable wind gusts. We departed Tonopah at about 9:15 AM after a good breakfast and headed for the town of Buckeye and points to the east.
We were making such good time that we thought we would make it to Chandler before the sun went down - - wrong again. When we got into the greater Phoenix area traffic snarl at rush hour, things slowed down to an absolute crawl. Just think of stop-and-go traffic....for bikes. Our plans don't include travel at night, but we do carry lights in the event of an emergency. For the first time during the trip we had to stop and attach the lights. This was for about the last 30 minutes of our 85-mile day We arrived at the home of Dick's niece, her husband and four children at about 6:30 PM, completing our longest day in terms of both riding time (6 hrs, 28 min) and distance.