Pyramid Scheme: a date with Arizona’s mysterious pyramid tombs.

 

Hello Motorcycle friends. American Rider Magazine, the journal of the International Big Twin community, has published my story and many photos of an incredible mototour to Arizona’s three pyramid-tombs.ย  These pyramid-tombs, like the people inside, are mysterious, memorable, majestic, and located in Quartzsite, Florence, and Papago Park in Phoenix. The digital version of American Rider is available at American Rider (dot) com; you’ll see great stops along the way: Dateland Travel Oasis off I-8, The Readers’ Oasis Bookstore in Quartzsite, and The River Bottom Grill on why 79 between Phoenix and Tucson.

 

The specter of pyramids rising from the desert seems more Egyptian than Arizonan, yet for more than 100 years, three pyramids holding the bones of Arizona leaders, explorers, and visionaries have dotted the desert spaces of Arizona.ย  And even though the desert is a place fitter for camels than people, I jumped on my Harley Davidson to visit these pyramid tombs which for Arizona’s first Governor, George P. Hunt in Phoenix, Hi Jolly the camel herder in Quartzite, and Charles D. Poston (Arizona’s first Congressional Representative) in Florence.

 

Riders yearning to see tilted Americana or cruise the roads less traveled will find unique memorials in these structures of masonry, quartz, fieldstone, basalt, petrified wood, and mortar, and in Poston, fragments from an early Indigenous American structure. Visiting all three will take about 8 hours of riding time, but if you giddy-up on the fast track, the trip can be done with one overnight stay. Since I live in the Phoenix area, my pyramid trifecta began on Interstate 10 by going west into Arizona’s Outback.

It’s no camel, but my Road King HD performed in desert heat.
Hi Jolly’s tomb at sunset.
Above, Territorial Harley Davidson in Yuma. Below, Hi Jolly tomb in Quartzsite. Jolly trained soldiers to ride camels for America’s first and only Camel Corps charged with mapping the Arizona Territory in the late 19th Century.
North from Yuma to Quartszite, AZ.
Scooping up a handful of dates at Dateland on I-8.
The tip of Poston’s tomb is visible on the butte behind these riders pausing along hyw 79.
From the River Bottom Grill you can see Poston’s tomb.
The pyramid tomb of Arizona’s first Governor George Hunt in Papago Park, Phoenix. Hunt served a record of seven terms.

See November’s issue of American Rider Magazine for this story.

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