Pleasant surprises

Alligator junipers are the coolest trees ever!

PINETOP-LAKESIDE, Ariz.—After spending the morning cooped up inside our temporary home because of dreary gray skies, cold wind and minefields of puddles all over the ground, we could no longer stand it. We got dressed and went for a bike ride. Damn the consequences!

We knew full well that the previous night's rains might have made the trails unrideable, but there's only so much television a person can stomach, and we'd already reached our weekly toxic allowance 24 hours earlier. So we set out for the Land of the Pioneers trailhead hoping for the best. The skies were still loaded with puffy gray rain clouds, and temperatures hovered at a chilly 45 degrees. It was a day for wool jerseys and knickers.

As we drove toward our destination, the skies dried out considerably and the sun beat down on us, leading us to believe that we were grossly overdressed for our ride. When we finally reached the trailhead about an hour later, however, the skies had once again grown dark and the air had grown even cooler. We quickly hopped on our bikes and made our way down the unfamiliar trail.

Show Low bike shop owner Todd Fernau had tipped us off to the rideability of the Land of the Pioneers trail the previous day when we happened to pop into Cycle Mania, Fernau's most excellent shop. With impending rain in the forecast, we wondered which of the White Mountain trails would dry out first in wet conditions.

The forest service map describes this as an "interesting box canyon." That's a total
understatement. It's an absolutely stunning box canyon!

A few years earlier during the annual Tour of the White Mountains ride/race, we had seen some of the trails turn into nightmarish mud bogs after a downpour. When exposed to rain, some of the soil in these parts transforms into a fearsome sticky-yet-slick clay that can totally gum up a bike, so we were anxious to avoid the trauma of becoming paralyzed in oobleck someplace way out on an unfamiliar trail in a community where nobody even knew who we were or that we were even out there riding.

When we inquired about the Land of the Pioneers—mostly because we had never ridden it—Fernau told us that the trail had been greatly improved during the past couple of years and that it was totally worth a ride. We needed to hear nothing more than that, so we made immediate plans to ride the trail a day later.

We enjoyed every minute of the trail! Despite its designation as "difficult," we navigated the rocky, winding path with ease. Maybe we rode well to ward off the chill, or maybe it was the simple fact that riding for five out of the past seven days had put us into great shape. Whatever it was, we enjoyed the ride more than we ever thought we would. Even better, the night of rains made the trails perfect and dustless.

If you wonder why they call this trail Land of the Pioneers, the ruins of an old home-
stead provide a quick answer.

In addition to enjoying the flow of the trail, we enjoyed the scenery as well. Giant alligator juniper trees loomed alongside us in many areas. Ancient oak trees stood guard over their piñon and juniper colleagues. As we climbed Eckes peak, we were able to look across vast expanses of Arizona wilderness. Newly re-routed sections melded perfectly with the landscape. Land of the Pioneers was much different from the grueling Hell Ride we'd heard it called when we first visited the White Mountains five years ago.

After our ride we returned home to clean up and get dressed for dinner. Hot water never felt so good! We dressed and visited the Sakura Buffet restaurant located in a strip mall in Pinetop. During our first visit here, we had dined at Sakura's predecessor—a delightful, four-star restaurant that served some of the finest sushi we had ever tasted.

The White Mountain Trail system is truly a mountain biking paradise.
The system has nearly 200 miles of well-marked, non-motorized
trails.

The new Sakura Buffet provided all-you-can-eat sushi and Asian food that was absolutely soulless and uninspiring. We had found the Furr's cafeteria of Japanese cuisine, except that I actually enjoy eating at Furr's sometimes. It seemed to us as though the Sakura 
Buffet food was simply created to reap a profit. There didn't seem to be any love or care put into the food. It was industrial, pedestrian...dead.

As a last thought on Sakura Buffet, I refer you all to one of the last scenes in the 1997 Hollywood blockbuster, Titanic. In that scene, actress Gloria Stuart as the Old Rose Dawson recalls her experience, so I'm summing mine up something like this:

"But now you know there was a restaurant named Sakura Buffet and that it was wretched...in every way that a restaurant can be wretched. I don't even have a picture of it. It exists now...only in my memory."

The good thing about a bad restaurant is that it makes the good ones seem even better!

See you on down the road.