How incredible big is this country? You can drive three full days in a car due south. If you do so in February, you may start in snowfalls and at the end you may step out of your car at almost 30°C. And this is not even all the way from the canadian to the mexican border.

We will see the mexican border soon. On our bicycles. Today started another great bicycle-adventure. This very time not on my own but with Emmy Pellico – one of the so called spinning sisters I met on my cross-country-tour in 2018 and I reconnected with in the last summer when she toured Germany together with her “sisters”. Well, this reconnection changed my life more than I would ever have expected. And there we are: on our first commonly planned bicycle-tour.

This tour takes us in a big loop from Tucson, AZ south to the border and back. We will see a whole lot of nothing in the desert. And all kinds of cacti, the sun, campgrounds, dogs, coyotes and rough roads.

The first day led us in a constant climb from Tucson into the wilderness close to the little town of Sonoita. Camping under the stars in the middle of nowhere is probably  a good start for any adventurous ride.

Did you know that Arizona was the last contiguous state of the US? – It became part of the country in 1863.