Not fun, can't even see the hills. So glad I took the mid week forcast to heart and went for our sightseeing trip up the Apache Trail and into the Superstition Mountains on Monday.
The desert is in bloom now and it's nice to see all the wild flowers, lush greenery and full fat Saguaro Cacti.
We drove Hwy 79 Northeast to Hwy 60 and then back North West to the Apache Trail. Lots of Indian lore and history in this day trip and many things to see and do.
Our first stop was at the Goldfield Ghost Town, where we took a narrow guage train ride around the town to learn about the area Mines and early inhabitants.
It's the only operating Narrow Gauge Railroad in Arizona, and the town once had three saloons, a Bordello and a hotel. Most of the residents earned a living mining in the 1890s. Now days pretty much tourist shops, where I had to sample their prickly pear cactus fudge, buy some authentic hand made Navajo Jewelry,DH munched popcorn as we strolled the streets and explored the town.
We observed an interesting reptile display and DH tried on hats in a shop, looking for headwear suitable for his trip to Mexico, where he wants to "fit in."
We continued on up the trail, very narrow,winding paved road up to Canyon Lake where we stopped to observe a couple of boats out fishing and looked at the available campground. Not an option for our big rig, but comfortable for weekend campers and fishermen. We made our way on up the trail, over two one lane bridges.
We arrived at Tortilla Flat, once a thriving stagecoach stop, and now a modern day postal stop, saloon and restaurant. Once this town had a population of over 125 with the construction workers for the dam, now a population of 6.
We had heard of the wildly advertised burgers and fun atmosphere, having the walls papered with dollar bills and old mining memorabilia.
The burgers were good, DH sampled once of the adult beverages offered and we sampled prickly pear ice cream for desert. A very busy place, we only had about a 10 minute wait, not bad for lunch. Since the road narrows even more and 5 miles past the stop it turns to gravel, we decided to turn around and head back. We topped off the day at the Camping World in Mesa and the wonderful new Walmart at Apache Junction.
We made it back to home sweet home about 8:30 p.m. The next venture will be on Saturday to Gilbert to visit friends and DH will play golf. It's hard to believe that things are winding down, the traffic is lighter and lots of folks are gone. We will pull out next Thursday and head west to El Centro California. That is if we make it through this dust storm!lol
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