Month: May 2017

Today we didn’t get in the car. It was a nice change as we begin the second week of our road trip. We set out to do a hike from the front door of our cabin. First we walked down the creek for quite a ways. 

Then we decided to bushwhack our way back around the other side of the big bluff which overlooks the ranch. It was tough going and each of us got scraped a bit by thorns but the challenge was worth it. 

It was really good to get back to our cabin, shower and put our feet up!

Tuesday morning we hiked the Catwalk National Recreation Trail. Back in the 1890s miners installed a water pipe through Whitewater Canyon for the nearby mine. A catwalk through the canyon was needed to maintain the pipe. The mines went away but in the 1930s a  trail was built on the old catwalk.  A recent fire and a big flood seriously damaged the catwalk but it has been rebuilt.  We hiked the catwalk and a bit further up the canyon.

After our hike we drove into Silver City. We stopped at the visitor center, had a snack at Dairy Queen, drove around the historic center and toured the museum.

From Silver City we went Back to our cabin on a ranch near Gila. About 4 pm we had a thunderstorm and the power went out. No power just made the evening more of an adventure. We had flashlights and candles. This cabin is a perfect spot to sit on the porch and read. We enjoyed dinner on the front porch too. The power came back on about 8 am this morning.

This morning we left Phoenix and took the Apache Trail up into the Superstition Mountains. First we came to Canyon Lake.  The road turned to gravel and the scenery to stunning canyons.

After about 30 miles of gravel we came to Theadore Roosevelt Dam where we had lunch.

The bridge by the dam is the longest steel single span bridge in a the United States.

After getting back to pavement we drove into New Mexico to a cabin near Gila. Right now we are sitting on the porch drinking wine and enjoying the peace and quiet.

The view is lovely.

I wasn’t sure whether I would mention it… but on a remote road near the eastern Arizona border we were pulled over by a very polite Arizona Highway Patrol officer who issued us a citation for flagrantly wasting finite resources!

It was suppose to be over 100 in Phoenix today so we got an early start. We were at the Desert Botanical Garden at 7:30.

About half way through our explorations we ate a great brunch at Gertrude’s the Botanical Garden restaurant.

Next we went to the Arizona State Capital. Duke and I are working on visiting all fifty state capitals. A lot of them look very similar. I liked the Arizona capital. It is pretty and different.

We also wandered around the grounds and looked at many of the monuments in the park in front of the capital. This one is two guns. One gun is from the USS Arizona that was sunk at Pearl Harbor at the beginning of World Ear II. The other gun is from the USS Missouri the ship on which the Japanese surrender was signed.

And this memorial is dedicated to police dogs.

This morning we drove south from Sedona and hiked the Bell trail. The trail goes up a canyon in the Mogollon Rim created by Beaver Creek. The Mogollon Rim is a 200 mile long escarpment that marks the south edge of the Colorado Plateau.

The trail is an out and back trail. We hiked a little over seven miles. It was a nice trail.

And at the end there was a big swimming hole called The Crack. Lots of kids were jumping off the cliffs into the water.

On the way back to the car we passed lots and lots of people hiking in. The swimming hole must have been packed.

After the hike we drove to Phoenix where we will be staying for the next couple of days.