Beverly Hills or Bust - Sculpture Road Trip Day 5 - From Ice and Snow to Mountain Biking

It was cold with snow and ice on the ground when we left the hotel in Flagstaff, Arizona.  At breakfast we decided drive to Phoenix, AZ to pick up foam and epoxy supplies.  We figured it would be easier and even less time to detour and drive south to the Smooth-On Dealer in Phoenix than it would to go to the Smooth-On store in LA.  And we hoped we would finally hit some warm weather.

I do love being in the South West.  The landscape seems so raw and fresh and new, and since it is desert, you can see so far.

We even got to see some outdoor sculpture when we stopped for gas.

Thanks to Google Maps we had no trouble finding the Smooth-On dealer.

Maybe it was the fumes or the stress of the road trip or just the way Duncan and I are:  whatever, we seemed to go a little crazy in the Smooth-On store.

We brought in the "spinning" basketball that we had tried to fill with foam using a whole can of FoamIt Gap Filler Foam.  The problem was that that type of foam needs to be exposed to air, especially the moisture in the air, in order to expand and then harden.  Inside our basketball with a rod in it blocking the hole we used for the foam, the stuff never expanded or hardened.  We figured the Smooth-on 2 part foam might work.  The sales woman put us in touch with Technical Support and they assured us that their foam  would expand and harden inside the basketball.  We also bought some epoxy and tools for applying the South Beach Black Sand to the base of the Swinging Jenny.

     When we drove off the sun was starting to get lower in the West.  Using his IPhone Duncan found a place close by where it looked like we could get in a mountain bike ride.






     We finished our ride as the sun was setting.  There was a large group of mountain bikers in the parking lot.  They all rode the same esoteric brand of mountain bike and were touring a lot of places to ride.  They even had rented a special van to take them and their bikes up to the top of a lot of the trails.  After a ride everyone seems to be feeling good, relaxed, and friendly.  They shared beers with us and we drove off with smiles on our faces.  We celebrated the ride with a rack of ribs and some more beer at Waddells Longhorn Corral.   Then it was back on the road.  Feeling the ride and a full stomach I was getting pretty tired and let Ducan drive into the last of 13 states we experienced on the road trip: California, the Promised Land!

Made it to California!

Swinging Jenny makes it to California

Driving to Palm Springs we arrived an hour earlier than we though we would because of the time zone change.