The day I set out was extremely hot and by mid-morning I was riding in shirtsleeves. I had strapped my tent and leather jacket to the back seat. On top of these, in a black plastic bag, was my sleeping bag. Thus I was able to put my feet up on the forward footrests of the 750 Honda and sink back into comfortable padding. The rest of my luggage was on the rack behind the seat and in two attached panniers. This was the manner in which I rode for most of the trip. I soon left the fertile lands of California, with its orange groves, behind me and was heading east on 'Interstate 8' from San Diego. Soon the congested traffic lanes were far behind as I followed the freeway over rocky mountains and out into the desert., following a route which was which was a few miles north and running parallel with the Mexican border. I had made good time and by mid- day had reached Yuma. Yuma lies just on the Arizonan side of the Californian border at the junction of the Colorado and Gila rivers. It is famous for its territorial prison which may be well known to western fans. The building is treated as a historic monument and so I stopped to look round for an hour and became acutely aware that the USA had very few historic buildings of note. The most famous prisoner was the woman outlaw Pearl Hart who committed the last stage coach robbery in Arizona. There was a list of other former inmates along with their misdeeds. Most were men but there were a few women besides Pearl Hart. One, which intrigued me, was a woman who was jailed for life for rape and then given a free pardon by the governor after a year. No other details were provided. I left Yuma and rode further east. 'I8' merged with 'I10' which ran down from Phoenix in the North. The desert began to change and for the first time I became aware of the saguaro cactus. they stand up to ten feet high like thick television aerials with their curved arms pointing upwards towards the sky. They are confined only to certain parts of the deserts of Arizona and Mexico as they are very prone to frost. At first I saw only one or two amongst the sage-brush. Then, as I neared Tucson they appeared in crowds. The tallest of them are over two hundred years old. By late afternoon I was about twenty miles west of Tucson. I had surprised myself with the distance I had travelled that day. I had really planned to look for a campsite that night but as I thought my Philippa and Mike's house was nearby, I decided to battle with the complexities of the US public telephone system and see if they were at home. They indeed were, and had been expecting me. I taped the map my Philippa had sent me to the top of the petrol tank and for the first time donned my leather jacket. The sun was sinking rapidly and I was surprised to find that it was getting quite cold. By the time I got to Tucson it was quite dark. I was to find that to get to Sierra Vista, where Philippa and Mike lived, I had to ride a further 70 miles east of Tucson and then another 20 miles further south. Thus I arrived there at about eight o'clock that night, very tired. I still really had not planned the rest of my trip. I had a sneaking ambition of riding right across America from West to East and back again. However, Mike told me that I would not have time to see very much and besides the countryside further east was not that interesting anyway. Also there were quite a lot of interesting things to see in that part of southern Arizona, and further north there was the painted desert and the Grand Canyon. I had arrived on a Friday evening and, by chance that Sunday, nearby Tombstone was holding a festival to celebrate its "Helldorado Days." Tombstone was founded in the late nineteenth century and quickly became a silver mining boom town. It was founded by a prospector who was told as he roamed the Apache country that all he would find in them there hills would be his own "Tombstone". Every Sunday afternoon, in the main street, the locals re-enacted the famous "Gunfight at the O.K. Corral" which took place in 1881 between the Earp brothers plus Doc Holiday against the Clanton and the McLowery brothers. Since this Sunday was a festival there was to be a parade followed by a whole day of gunfight re- enactment's culminating, of course, with that of the O.K. Corral. This was probably because that, despite the various big screen versions, the whole fight took less than one minute. It did not take place at the O.K Corral either but that's another story. The three of us had an entertaining day out. We saw the parade but after the first hour of gunfight enactment's, the noise and heat was too much, so we skipped three hours and came back later for the grand finale, which I almost missed as I nearly dropped my camera. I accepted an invitation to make Philippa and Mike's home my base while I explored the surrounding area and I stayed there for eight days before continuing on my travels.