pRaising Arizona

After pulling into town RVers typically park in the spacious parking lots of big boxes on the edge of town. Let's say you've done so but are still hitched up, and then you see the store you really want just across the street. What do you do: walk or drive?

For your sake I hope you drive, as silly as that seems. There is little allowance made for pedestrians on most American streets, except in Oregon or some mountain towns in Colorado. I had a close call walking across the street in western Colorado, recently. Despite the close call, Colorado is quite good in that department. I dreaded returning to culturally backward states like Utah and Arizona. 

Since western Colorado is in the gravitational field of Moab, I found a cycling newspaper and read about a tragic accident involving a cycling advocate. I started rolling the tape back over all the cyclists I've known who were smacked by cars. The next day I stopped to help a caterpillar cross the road near the BLM mesa where I was camping.

One night I noticed the neighbors below the mesa actually walking on a rural chip-and-seal road at sunset with their baby stroller. That was a rare sight, and more precious to me than all the red rock photo cliches that I would soon be driving through, in Moab and Monument Valley. Normally rural roads are driven at 65+ mph and are dreadful places for walkers or runners.

When I pulled into Prescott, AZ, last week I expected to go into a tirade about their insane traffic. I was surprised to see cameras and automated radar vans cracking down on speeders. It does seem a little odd for somebody who is basically libertarian to praise anti-speeding techniques like this. No longer are motor-crazed yahoos cruising neighborhood streets at 40 mph. Occasionally you even see a child riding a bicycle on a residential street.