Another random act of kindness

Well here we are in the old copper mining town turned hippie/art/old west mecca called Bisbee, AZ. We've been holed up here for the last couple of days while waiting for a package to arrive from Mom. The advice: never send anything through the Mexican postal service. So we decided to wait, if impatiently (we can SEE the border!!), to avoid testing los servicios postales Mexicanos. Anyway, our first day in town was last Friday. I went into the local post office to inquire about receiving a package there, and later asked the clerk if he knew of a place to camp. Although this is one of the more desolate places in the US there are very few campgrounds, parks, or land that is not fenced off and labeled 'No Trespassing.' He couldn't think of any, but the man waiting in line behind me, Terry, offered us a place to pitch our tent behind the Church of the Nazarene. I thanked him and went to tell Eric. Because of the weekend and our rural location, however, we realized we'd need a place to stay for several nights while we waited. We asked Terry if that would be alright, and he said it wouldn't be a problem. In the end he took us to the church, showed us in, and told us to make ourselves at home. All in all we wound up with a warm, dry place to stay for free for 4 nights complete with a kitchen, bathroom and carpeted floor to crash on. Unbelievable. We thanked him profusely for his generosity, although it seemed that there was nothing we could say that would properly express our gratitude. So we made cookies! Classic chocolate chip and oatmeal flaxmeal chocolate chip (the cereal made much better cookies than it did breakfast ;c)

Bisbee is a pretty cool old and new town. In some ways it's kind of like Capitol Hill and Fremont squished together. For example, we are in a food co-op right now eating a butternut squash brownie and drinking Mexican chile Yogi tea. On Saturday night we went out to see the town, and the first thing we came across was the opening of a new bike shop. They were streaming video entries from the Dead Baby Bike Porn festival, completely visible to the street (cars kept stopping!) and serving beer out of a keg. Yeah, watching porn with your sibling...there's nothing quite like it, let me tell you. After that we went to Hot Licks saloon (seriously), and listened to Tumbledown House play some great old school jazz and blues. I don't know if they have a website, but they are worth a listen if you can find them.
And now for a vignette: Wal*Mart (excerpted from my journal)

Contrary to my 'normal' life, one of the highlights of any given day of riding is the sighting of one of these corporate retail and produce giants looming off the highway. It means access to virtually anything we could possibly need at that moment including cheap food, water for our bottles, and no-questions-asked trips to the bathroom. That is the beauty of Wal*Mart.
It has often been a site for lunch with us sprawled along the sidewalk on my sleeping pads and eating tubs, not cups, of yogurt, cutting and peeling various fruits, and providing gawkable entertainment for young kids - adults try to avert their eyes or ask us how far we're going. Our most recent Wal*Mart experience involved .58 personal pies (peach for me, pumpkin for Eric) and good people watching. In Coolidge, AZ everyone goes to Wal*Mart - blacks, whites, Mexicans, natives, old, young. My favorite moment was concerning a very well-to-do looking woman in heels and an expensive skirt clicking into the store. I commented, flippantly, to Eric that she looked too fancy for Wal*Mart. When she came back out she caught both of our attention - we looked at her, looked at each other and burst into laughter. The sight of this well-dressed white woman pushing an enormous shopping cart with one mostly empty plastic bag sitting diminutively in the front corner was too ridiculous for us to handle!

OK, enough text for today. Before I take off I'll add in some photos of Pat and John and Sassy from Sierra Vista and a few unique things from Old Bisbee. Next post will be from Mexico - sweet!