Leg 48 Nogales – Tucson

Leg 48 Nogales – Tucson (Mar 24): 103 km, climb 128 m. Total distance 4850 km.

Another wonderful day in southern Arizona. Sun shining from a more or less cloudless sky, temperature around 25C/77F most of the day, warmest reaching just below 30C/86F. Even though we had a 128 m climb we had a net descent of just over 350 m – what’s not to love about that when topped off with generally good roads and a mild tailwind most of the way. Biking rocks!

Today is the first day in almost three weeks we are below 1000 m (3280 feet) above sea level and there is a clear change in the vegetations. A lot of large oak trees with fresh leaves, pecan plantations (without leaves) and a lot of other larger trees. Also blessed with blooming roadsides, mostly Mexican poppy and bluebonnet. Today was the first day we got to see some large Saguaro cactus (finally!). Also saw some new nasty cacti, whoa, would not like to hug those (se pic below). Todays best moments was when we saw a large handsome coyote passing the road just in front of us.