We spent the morning in downtown Pheonix, mostly consisting of high rise towers of the banking society, although I did spot E&Y but no PwC, I am sure it was lurking around somewhere! Ian knew of the "knitted artwork", well that's how it was how he described it to me, I guess when I saw it I can relate to purl one plain one!! at night this is lit up, and I can imagine looks great.
'Her Secret is Patience' by
Janet Echelman, 2009.
We then left Pheonix and started the next part of our journey, opting for the scenic route from Apache Junction on highway 88 (which said treacherous road, we didn't think so) - we first came across a ghost town (with the surprising name of
Goldfield), and this was the original church.
Of course the ghost town had a saloon and was still used! We popped in to look, and found all these dead boots (some were signed) on the ceiling...
The town also had an old time photographer, where you can add your own headline to your photo - quite funny, we thought. In fact, Ian thought this poster was the funniest thing he's seen so far on this trip! He just couldn't stop laughing at 'Wrong Way Wally'...
There was a shack displaying snakes, reptiles (and other desert critters) in the ghost town displaying all scary things (the
Superstition Live Reptile Museum - the name is grander than the museum/shack)...... Yes, this is a tarantula.
This is when Ian really felt the FEAR - a wall-full of Black Widows, cobwebs, orange (and black) tarantulas, and scorpions!
We had to stop at Canyon Lake, even though we were trying to beat the sun on the long and winding road. We figured they must had paved the road since the dangerous advice...
Tortilla Flats - this is what happens in the wild west if you don't behave!!
Back on the so-called 'treacherous' Apache Trail, which all of a sudden turned from bitumen to dust... not that bad, until the sign informed us it would be
22 MILES of winding mountain dust track!! It was fine, but could not see if anything was coming round the bend.... for
22 MILES!
It was up hill and down dale for another hour or so - but at least we had wonderful views to look at (when we weren't crawling around off-camber hairpin corners, awaiting that one car going too fast right at us!).
Towards the end of the Apache Trail, as our nerves were starting to fall apart, Apache Lake appeared, and guided us towards the end of the trail - Roosevelt Dam.
As the sunlight started to fail completely (there are no streetlights on the Apache Trail), Roosevelt Dam rose out of the water to greet us.
On the other side of the dam, we took a left at Theodore Roosevelt Lake to find our way home in Camp Verde. A thunderstorm on our right (although the weather over us was fine, as you can see here) kept providing glowing flashes over the mountains - we had to keep reminding ourselves that it wasn't aliens or an approaching army - just lightning.
No comments:
Post a Comment