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| Patagonia - Sonoita Scenic Drive State Hwy 82 |
We have been home for over two months now, and although photos were loaded onto the laptop and edited for uploading, the time to finalize the last blog post of this cruising season has been elusive.
However, it is a rainy morning in mid June - what better opportunity to post photos and comments of our homeward journey.
Tuesday, March 20th: 'adios' to San Carlos and north to Nogales and the USA border. All went well, as we zigged and zagged along the construction detours, with clear skies. No request to stop and be inspected and a tedious but reasonable wait at the border. We skirted the southern edge of Nogales on our way through Patagonia towards Benson, Arizona where we spent two nights and visited the intriguing Kartchner Caverns and hiked a nearby trail. The wild West is alive and performing daily at nearby Tombstone. No photos are permitted underground; however their website is very informative. [https://azstateparks.com/kartchner]
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| Patagonia - lunch stop at Wagon Wheel Saloon |
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| Benson - Railway Engineer certificate for the Captain |
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| Gardens at Kartchner Caverns |
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| Carol at Foothills trail head - bring water and watch for critters! |
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| Kelly exploring trails before our underground excursion |
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| Tombstone - gunfights and tours daily |
Thursday, March 22: Benson to Prescott Arizona. To avoid the joys of Tucson and Phoenix traffic jams, we headed east on I-10 from Benson, then north on US Hwy 70 towards Globe. This route is still quite desert and scrub filled and passes through a portion of the San Carlos Apache reservation. We had a quick lunch stop in Globe, refueled our truck and turned north onto State HWY 188 and into the Tonto National Forest. This route was actually not as isolated as expected and near Roosevelt Lake there was a considerable gathering of campers and other vehicles.
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| Nearing Lake Theodore Roosevelt in Tonto National Forest, Arizona |
With thanks to Wikipedia: "The Tonto National Forest, encompassing 2,873,200 acres, is the largest of the six national forests in Arizona and is the fifth largest US national forest. It includes elevations ranging from 1,400 feet (427 m) in the Sonoran Desert portion, to 7,400 feet in the ponderosa pine forests of the Mogollon Rim. The Tonto Forest Reserve was established on October 3, 1905. A land swap proposed as a part of the 2015 National Defense Authorization Act would permit a subsidiary of the Rio Tinto mining conglomerate, Resolution Copper Co., to acquire 2,400 acres of the Tonto National Forest, considered sacred for the San Carlos Apache Tribe, for copper mining."
Not sure how or whether that major issue has been resolved.
This mountain route joins Hwy 88 and turns northward to Payson in Gila County; another rest and fuel stop in what appears a good size community in the near centre of the state. And a 'gravol' top-up for the Admiral who read the map and was not looking forward to the twists and turns and switchbacks to come. They did not disappoint! After passing the small community of Strawberry, for a short but amazing time we were on the western portion of National Forest road 300 - the Rim Road. TheTown of Payson website describes the effects of the Mogollon Rim area in these terms:
"At Fulton Point, at the western intersection of the Rim Road and State 260, stand at its promontory and gaze down at a mob of ponderosas, a deep green ocean that ripples softly over the miles, interrupted by a brown dot of a ranch clearing here or there, back to the blue mountains, each ranch defined by a ragged line that grows fainter as it goes, the mist thickening, until finally, the last one is shrouded in silver, the way heaven must look. The beauty will capture you. It does anyone who breathes oxygen. Don’t be surprised to find visitors, any time from dawn through the blackest part of night, sitting in a dreamlike state at one promontory or another. Western writer Zane Grey, who wrote several of his books nearby at a cabin on Tonto Creek, once told an interviewer that he liked to sit on the Rim and ponder."
Our schedule hadn't anticipate savouring these viewpoints except from the road. We joined HWY 260, an east-west corridor, for the final switchback climb into pondersa forest plateau, then descended into the Verde River valley near Campe Verde. Whew! Roads less traveled appeal to the Captain and this served the purpose. It was time to join I-17 south for all of 20 minutes before turning right onto Hwy 169 westward towards Prescott for a reunion with friends Diane and John. It is one of the joys of cruising, that when sailing folks extend an invitation to stop by for a visit, they mean it - even if it takes awhile to arrive at their doorstep! The Olsens made us welcome, provided generous hospitality and ensured we saw the highlights of this special part of Arizona during our visit.
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| Seeing Prescott with the Olsens - and Ziggy |
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| Thumb Butte - from a distance |
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| Lake view - must return to hike the trails |
Hmm...the rain has stopped, the sun is out. A good time "to be continued".
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