After we settled into our hotel at Lake Las Vegas, Tami abandoned Mike and headed back to spend a few days at her brother’s house in St. George, given that Mike was going to be occupied with conference stuff.

On Thursday, however, I (Mike) did not have any commitments until evening, so thought I would see if I could find a bike to rent. It turned out that the boat rental place near the hotel also had a few bikes. Once I got squared away, I headed off towards Vegas. Lake Las Vegas is close to Henderson, a suburb of Vegas, but there was some desert to head through.

Fortunately, there were some nice bike trails in the intervening distance, so I took those part of the way. Eventually I got on the Boulder Highway heading toward downtown. It was not very scenic, but the traffic was not heavy and there was a wide shoulder. Realizing I had neglected to through a water bottle on the bike before leaving (but its desert, what could go wrong?), so I stopped at a gas station and grabbed a big bottle that would fit in the cage on the bike.

There were several casinos on the way (not the big fancy casinos like on the strip, but still substantial places). I was amused when I rode by one that had its own KOA campground.

Just off the strip I found an interesting little shopping area called the Container Park. The whole place appeared to have been constructed from shipping containers. Also in the area where several odd sculptures made from trucks.

From there I looped up to North Las Vegas, where I spotted the Old Las Vegas Mormon Fort State Historical Park, something I am sure Tami will want to go back and see on our way out of town.

Heading back, I took a route that followed the “river”. On one side was a sign warning people to stay out because of the danger of flooding. On the other side was a bike/walk path. Something did not quite match up about that!

Eventually town ran out and I headed back onto the bike path across the desert back to Lake Las Vegas. When I got back I was hot and worn out, not having been on a bike in over a month. I spent some time in the room before heading back out for the evening conference activities.

We finally turned the car north to Flagstaff for the last leg of our journey before the business end of the trip. We have been to Flagstaff a couple of times before, but not for quite a few years. We enjoyed the change of landscape to pine covered hills with distant mountains. There were also building clouds in the distance that somehow went with the treed hills. Perhaps a little pining for home?

Our hotel was once again the big, old refurbished hotel in the old downtown area. They only had two rooms rented but even with that, there was only one parking space left that was a very skinny fit. According to the desk clerk, the spaces should open up after 5:00 when the managers all went home. Hmm, perhaps the spaces should be reserved for guests?

Oh well, we squoze into the last space and set off on foot to explore. Flagstaff is home to Northern Arizona University, which helped explain why there were so many breweries and brewpubs in town. After so much walking we had to stop and try one out. Tami described her peanut butter stout made with Mexican cocoa as a Snickers in a glass. Just the nourishment needed to continue!

We were quite surprised to see how downtown Flagstaff had changed since we were last here. On our last visit downtown was filled with shops selling Native American art and jewelry. We had expected to spend some time looking through them. Now those shops seem to be almost gone. It seems like the emphasis has moved from serving tourists to serving students.

Flagstaff is a nice place where the university adds some verve to a sleepy old town and the setting is quite beautiful. The train tracks run right through the middle of town and there are very frequent freight trains blasting through town. It’s just part of navigating Flagstaff and somehow adds to the charm. We had a large and wonderful room back in our hotel and the sound of frequent trains just added to the atmosphere.

We noticed as we drove that a good part of the distance was following the old Route 66. Many towns play that up as much as possible. We stopped for lunch at a BBQ joint (Floyd’s) in Kingman. It was a sleepy little town, but with a nice Route 66 vibe.

Our route to Lake Las Vegas, where the conference will be held, took us to Hoover Dam so we had to stop for a visit. My, how that has changed since our last visit! We realized that right away as the highway took us on a huge bridge that spanned the canyon where the dam is. What??? The highway is supposed to go OVER the dam! So we took the turnoff to actually see the dam and passed through the security stop which consisted of stopping long enough for them to tell us to have a nice day. On to the large parking garage so we could get out and at least look out over the dam itself. That hasn’t changed, and is as amazing as ever.

The final leg took us in to Lake Las Vegas and our hotel for the conference. It’s a beautiful place built in the style of an Italian villa with a few shops and restaurants around.

Yesterday started out with a short drive to see Montezuma’s Castle, an ancient cliff dwelling Tami remembered from her childhood. It really was in a beautiful setting, right above a river so that the flat ground at the base of the cliff is filled with trees. It was apparently part of a series of communities along the river, relying on the water for agriculture. Tami said she would be happy to live there. We did, however, manage to leave before the Rough Riders re-enactors got going.

From there we decided to take a closer look at Sedona. It seems like some of the main things to do there are hiking and mountain biking, so we thought we’d go for a little hike to see if we could find us a vortex. Bell Rock is reputed to be a powerful vortex location (it said so on our vortex map) – therefore a good place for our hunt.

Walking up the trail toward The Rock, we started hearing powerful vortex noises – various whooshes and even rumbles. We were getting very excited! (We discussed but rejected the idea that the noises could be related to the main road we were paralleling.) Strangely though, as we climbed the rock, we found we were not gaining energy, but instead losing it. Finally we reached the ledge where we had read that the vortex was at its most powerful. Suddenly Tami was enveloped in the swirling vortex and began spinning in circles. I was afraid she was going to spin right off the ledge, but since we had not eaten our picnic lunch yet, Tami managed to redirect the vortex towards the food, and finally broke free.

After eating, we headed back, finding that the going was much easier – was it the power of the vortex, the food, or the fact we were going downhill? We settled on the power of the food. The trail was very busy. Perhaps a bit too busy for the mountain bikes that kept whizzing by. Another thing we noticed was that some people made it all the way to the top of the rock. I never figured out how they got there, as the last part of the way appeared to be vertical and I could not spot a route that would allow access short of rock climbing. Our souvenir of the hike was our very red shoes.

Looking at the map, I realized that we had actually missed downtown Sedona yesterday and apparently had only passed through West Sedona, the strip mall district. Therefore we headed that way to see if downtown was the interesting area we had always heard about. It wasn’t. It turned out to be just another touristville with lots of T-shirt shops, party bars, second rate art, etc. The traffic on the one lane roads leading into and through town was terrible as well (we spent maybe 15 minutes in a probably mile long backup just getting into town). That must really frustrate the people who have lived there from before it got so popular. After walking around a bit we gave up and headed back to our hotel. At least Tami had found a dealer for her crack – chocolate covered peanuts. Back at the hotel she was quickly covered in the creamy dark stuff.

After an early dinner, we spent a while battling our terrible internet connection to try and follow the end of the Husky football game. We occasionally got just enough connection to catch a quick update. A 41-17 win was a thrilling result! We also noticed that the Cougs won another game as well, though by a much closer margin. It is shaping up to be an interesting Apple Cup this year!

Today was an easier outing – we drove to Clarkdale to ride a train. The train was a four hour trip up the Verde Valley Canyon and back. Before we boarded we enjoyed the special Octoberfest sausages and beer tasting at the station. There are some good breweries down here!

After boarding the train, we found that our first class seating (coach was all sold out) included an appetizer lunch. We did what we could, but had to call it quits after a game try. We discovered the real upside to having been forced to buy the first class seats when a passenger from coach walked through. He stopped and exclaimed “you don’t have 100 screaming children up here!”

The route followed the river the whole way, so between the river bottom and the red cliffs, it was again very scenic. At one point we went through a tunnel that they told us had been completed in 6 months by a crew of 25 Swedes. We figured if it had been Norwegians, it would have taken a year.

At the turn around point, Perkinsville (pop. 12), we noticed we had just enough cell signal to check in on the Sounders game. This was not just any game, but the final game of the regular season that would determine whether they got into the playoffs. While they moved the engine to the other end of the train, we watched the live game discussion from the Seattle Times, but just as they were going into the final 3 minutes of stoppage time, leading 2-1, the train started moving again and we lost our signal! It was not until we were back at the station in Clarkdale that we were able to confirm that the Sounders had won and would advance to the playoffs! Almost as good was learning that the Portland Timbers had lost – no playoffs OR Cascade Cup for them!

Back at the hotel we watched the Seahawks play the worst game we have ever seen them not lose. I believe I heard the announcers say after it was over that it was the lowest scoring tie game in NFL history (6-6).

Driving to Sedona felt a little bit like commuting through Seattle after so many days of driving quite empty highways. We were among a steady stream of cars approaching the red rocks around Sedona. It is quite dramatic as the terrain transitions from the ubiquitous brown hills to sudden red cliffs with green vegetation, and it was quite beautiful. We continued through Sedona itself and were a bit surprised that there did not seem to be a central area to walk around. It seemed very car-centric, but we decided that the thing to do was to come back and find some good hiking.

We continued to Cottonwood, which was a quaint little town with a nice local artist’s co-op, which we often find to be a good source of quality art. Then on to Tuzigoot, which is a ruin dating back to the mid-fourteenth century. The visitor center, which was built in the 1930’s, featured some beautiful reconstructed pots that were recovered from the original excavation as well as displays on the history of the site.

We enjoyed walking through the ruins and appreciating the architecture of the site and imagining life at the time. We enjoyed the vistas as it was built on the top of a hill with magnificent views all around. There were very few others visitors and it often felt like we were the only ones there, making photography also much easier. As we were finally taking leave of the ruins, Mike said, “Phew, just in time”. Looking ahead we could see a very large school group climbing up the path to the ruins. Phew is right!

From Tuzigoot we could see the old mining settlement of Jerome far up on the mountainside. It was a winding five mile drive up the road to Jerome and we unfortunately got behind an RV that was ridiculously slow, doing 20 mph on a mostly 50 mph road, with multiple pull-outs for slow vehicles. Did they use them? NO! Not until we were within about ½ mile of Jerome and the line of cars behind them was about 15 cars long (Tami was counting), but finally they let us all by and we were in the rejuvenated old town of Jerome.

Tami had been through here on a family road trip in the early 1970’s and remembered a near ghost town. It was mostly abandoned in the 50’s, but as a local told us, the hippies discovered it and started bringing it back to life and now it is a thriving tourist attraction. One shopkeeper said that we were lucky it was only Friday because by Saturday it would be insane, and that he had seen a huge increase in just the past two years.

Jerome is built on a very steep hillside and it seems that the buildings are barely holding on. The views are expansive and there are certainly still a number of old buildings awaiting renovation, but it was a fun place to wander and enjoy some of the whimsy of the locals.

We found a delicious lunch in a Mexican restaurant with colorful furniture. Mike had the pork enchiladas and Tami had the chicken mole enchiladas. While they may sound a bit pedestrian, the cilantro rice and black beans/pinto beans that came with them were fantastic and the enchiladas themselves were exceptional. Not a speck of food was left!

It was with regret that we checked out of the Inn on the Desert as it was such a nice place, but we had places to go and things to do. We were now heading back north and our first stop was at Casa Grande, a ruin of the Hohokam people dating back to 1350.

It was an interesting structure but not very extensive so we were soon back on the road towards Camp Verde, our stop for the next few days. The highway connecting us back to the interstate was a nice drive over a ridge that featured many saguaro and desert rocks, but we were soon back driving along lots of dirt, sage, and distant brown mountains.

We made one stop at a rest area along the way, and it somewhat personified our drive today. While it was listed as a scenic viewpoint, it kinda seemed like the same brown hills we’d seen all day. The temperature was nearing 100 and brown dust ruled everywhere. A favorite feature was the sign over the water fountain warning about bees. Sure enough, as Tami cautiously pushed the fountain button, a couple of bees came flying out of the drain. Hmm, maybe not. We got bottled water instead, and as we were leaving noticed the signs about poisonous snakes and insects. Nice and restful.

Camp Verde has a brewpub, Verde Brewing Company, so that’s where we stopped, as usual. They advertise farm to mug brewing and we enjoyed both the beer and the food. Mike had their green chile burger and Tami had the ribs with pineapple slaw.

As we devoured our choices we discussed the next few days of touristing. There are two possible train rides we can sign up for so we had to decide between the ride to the Grand Canyon and back or the Oktoberfest train ride up into Verde Canyon. The scale went back and forth: big canyon but no beer or little canyon with beer, big and no beer, little with beer. Well, we went with the beer.

We have found that it’s no problem getting reservations for hotels and such during the week, but weekends are still problematic, which is why we are staying in Camp Verde and not Jerome, our original plan. Train rides have similar problems, so our train ride will be on Sunday, leaving the next couple of days to explore Jerome, Sedona, Tuzigoot, and Montezuma’s Castle. We picked up the usual pile of tourist brochures and are thinking that maybe we need a personal vortex tour. Tami would really like a picture of a vortex.

Having come from Boeing families, both Tami and I have grown up fascinated with airplanes. When we discovered that one of the biggest airplane museums in the world (Pima Air & Space Museum – they advertise 150 planes inside and 150 planes outside) is in Tucson, we HAD to go.

In addition to the museum itself, this is also the location of the “Boneyard”, the place where the US military parks the planes that it has retired or mothballed. I have wanted to see this for years, but never thought I would have a chance. Then we discovered that it is next to the Pima Museum, AND that the museum ran tours of the boneyard, so we HAD to do that too!

We then spent the better part of the day just geeking out on airplanes. We took FAR more pictures that we can share here, but below is a small selection, with explanations.

Our little gutless car whined its way up Tombstone Canyon out of Bisbee and we headed to… well, Tombstone. Tami really wanted to stop there knowing full well it would be very touristy but she always wanted to be a cowboy as everyone knows now, so we had to stop. It did not disappoint in being a tourist trap.If you always wanted to dress up like a cowboy (looking at you Tex), there were multiple stores that could fix you up with the whole deal. You would have thought Tami would want a bit of that, but we passed.

The funny thing was that as we drove into town they were doing some road maintenance on the Main Street with a backhoe and lots of guys in orange vests. Kind of took away from the ambiance.

We wandered around regardless and noted that they had the OK Corral sealed up so tight that you couldn’t see a thing. Unless you bought a ticket, of course. So we kept wandering and got a few pictures of gunslingers that added to the atmosphere. We looked but couldn’t find a bakery, so decided to go find Boot Hill. You had to pay to see that, too, so we just headed on down the trail to Tucson, our destination for the night.

First stop had to be lunch of course. Mike found another brewpub, Thunder Canyon (google maps is great for a road trip!). They were celebrating Oktoberfest so we ordered pork schnitzel and beef stroganoff, which were excellent choices.

After lunch we wandered around a little to get a feel for Tucson, but the main feeling we got was hot. Very hot. In the nineties hot. The obvious solution to the problem was to go find an air conditioned movie theater to spend a couple of hours and what a fine choice it was. We saw Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children and found it to be better than we expected and a fun way to spend the afternoon.

We are now relaxing in our hotel for the next two nights, the Lodge on the Desert. It is also a nice surprise as it is a very beautiful hotel spread out on gorgeous grounds at a very reasonable price. The room is very spacious and attractive with all the amenities, and the restaurant is locally sourced and delicious. A nice find here in the desert and while we have loved the quaint atmosphere of some of our historic hotel choices, the touch of luxury and spaciousness is a welcome change.

 

We left Silver City relatively early for us and headed south through a lot of brown, dry country. We stepped in Lordsburg for gas, a town that seemed to have more empty buildings than occupied ones and in fact we drove past several abandoned gas stations before we actually found one in operation. It was so busy we had to wait to get a pump. For all we know, it was the only operating station in town. Needless to say, we weren’t impressed with Lordsburg.

As we made our way out of a small mountain range we had just crossed, we spotted two heavily-laden cyclists heading uphill as we were making the last gradual descent after a very long, steep, winding descent. It was only nine in the morning but the temperature was already approaching 80 degrees. We saw them and groaned in sympathy. They had a very hard ride ahead of them.

Douglas is a town in Arizona that is right on the border with Mexico, and when we were within about 50 miles of it we started seeing Border Patrol trucks around. They even had a checkpoint to stop and inspect all northbound cars at one point on the very untraveled highway we were taking. They just waved at us as we went by headed towards Mexico. Once we made it to Douglas we got within about ten blocks of the border but neglected to go and see The Wall. We were just anxious to get on to Bisbee.

Bisbee was a main destination for this trip because we are both fans of several of J A Jance’s series of mysteries. We first started reading a series set in Seattle featuring J P Beaumont. Later we discovered a second series featuring Joanna Brady that are set here in Bisbee. Jance grew up in Bisbee and we have always enjoyed the setting of that series, so here was a chance to see it in person.

Bisbee was founded as a mining town in 1880 and you can tell that the Copper Queen mine was everything for this town. As you approach the town, the first thing you see is the huge mountain of mine tailings as well as the nearly one thousand foot deep open pit mine. The mines were finally closed in the 70’s, but mining recovery techniques have improved so much that if the price of copper ever goes up significantly, they will be able to recover nearly as much copper from the tailings as they originally found.

We were quite taken with Bisbee. It is set within a fairly steep-sided canyon so that everything is placed on hillsides and many of the old downtown buildings have been preserved. It is a very scenic town, with quite a few galleries (though most were closed – typical off season hours are something like Thursday through Sunday, and today is only Monday). We really enjoyed the ambiance and setting and were very happy to find a room in the Copper Queen Hotel, which was built in 1898 and is allegedly haunted. We haven’t seen any ghosts yet.

We also learned about a jeep tour we could take that would take us all around Bisbee, specifically pointing out places relevant to the Jance books. Sign us up! Gary met us out in front of our hotel and drove us around Bisbee for over two hours. It was a great tour and Gary told us all kinds of fun stuff about Bisbee and Jance (he went to school with her and she has also gone on the tour). We also liked it when he pointed out that even Jance says she can’t remember exactly which events happened in which book, just like us.

The city was built on hillsides so steep that many of the houses are only accessible by steep staircases. The city is known for its many long, steep staircases and they just had their famous annual run, the Bisbee 1000, in which runners cover nine long staircases with over 1000 steps total and just under five miles. The roads are also extremely narrow and it felt more like Europe driving through those streets than it did a southwest town!

He also pointed out that if you ever want to buy a house in Bisbee, make sure the address does not have a letter above A or B after it. Many houses are not on any street, but rather up one or another of the steep staircases. The house numbers have letters added according to how far away from the street they are. Thus, 9 is next to the street, 9A is next up that stairs, and 9F would be seven houses up the stairs from the street. Carrying groceries home can be quite the challenge. The high school is listed in Ripley’s Believe It Or Not – it has four floors but each floor has a street-level entrance because the street next to it is so steep. This place has character!

We had dinner in the hotel saloon and while it was nothing fancy, it was well prepared and very tasty. There was even a fellow playing guitar and singing old favorites while we ate. We are enjoying our stay in this little time machine back a hundred years, but tomorrow it is on to Tombstone and Tucson!

Our goal today was Silver City, NM, an old mining town up in the hills. On the way, however, we decided to visit Chloride, a semi-ghost town in the hills above Truth or Consequences (yes, that really is the name of a town). It was a good ways up to Chloride, maybe an hour to drive the 30 miles, but it was pretty country – rolling hills, rocks, dry but with small trees, and at one point cows on the road.

Chloride itself reputably has 11 residents, but there may be a few more part timers. The ghost town part has been fixed up by the family that owns it. We got the tour with the adult daughter of the couple who purchased it back in 1977 and started fixing it up. She told us the whole story about how her parents had stumbled on the property while on vacation and, once they realized it was not just an old western movie set, decided on the spot they wanted to buy it. They managed to find a local who knew something about the property and who owned it. She let them use her phone to call the woman who owned the property, but warned them the woman could be rather crabby and might even cuss them out.

Well, they managed to contact the owner, and she started swearing as soon as she answered the phone, and kept it up through the whole conversation. They persevered, however, and were finally able to make a deal with the owner. After they finally got off the phone, they told the woman who let them use the phone that she was right, the owner really was a nasty piece of work and asked how she happened to know such a disagreeable person. “Oh, she’s my sister”, was the reply.

One building had been the general store. It had closed back in the early 1900’s, but when it was closed, all the contents had been left intact. The current owners have turned it into a museum, still set up as a general store and featuring all the goods they found when they opened it up.

Another building had been restored to house a cafe where we had lunch (I got green chili chowder and Tami had the ubiquitous green chili burger). Several other buildings had been set up as exhibits, as a gift store, and as rental cabins. We really enjoyed the visit and thought it was definitely worth the drive up.

After we came back down we drove through Truth or Consequences, but were NOT impressed. Dry and dusty and not much to see.

From there we took the “short cut” to Silver City. The route did considerably shorten the distance (think one side of a square, with the other route being the other three sides of the square). The price was a climb up windy mountain roads up over a high pass. It was slow but beautiful. Tami really earned her beer by the time we reached Silver City!

Silver City has a very cool old downtown with more than its share of galleries, surrounded by a significant area of modern sprawl. Unfortunately because it was late afternoon on a Sunday, all the galleries were closed. We did manage to find a nice brewpub, however, which also had some great pastrami and green chili burgers (see below).

We are staying at the Palace Hotel, a fun little old fashioned hotel, actually a bit reminiscent of the Palace Hotel in Port Townsend.

Tomorrow we are off to Bisbee, AZ, home of the fictional Sheriff Joanna Brady from the series by JA Jance, a mystery author we have enjoyed over the years.

First thing this morning we called about a train ride up into the mountains that Mike had spotted online. According to their website, the trains ran every Saturday and sounded quite fun and scenic. However, a phone call revealed that at they haven’t run since 2014! Too bad, but we decided to go ahead and check out of our hotel and get on down the road. We gathered up a pile of accumulated stuff and took it to UPS to ship it home. It’s nice to send that stuff on home and not worry about carting it around and fitting it into our luggage later on.

Last night we found that Truth or Consequences hotels were quite booked so we altered our initial plan and found a place in Socorro, which is a little closer but not a place we’d ever heard of. Guess we’ll find out!

Before leaving Santa Fe, we had to make a stop at the farmers market, back at the Railyard district where we had dinner last night. There were lots of stalls with great local produce, including many types of peppers, of course. Mike would have loved to bring a whole selection home. There were also many inviting stalls with food to eat and we settled on a homemade green chile sausage for Mike, a kielbasa for Tami, and a shared slice of mushroom and onion flatbread. There were many other yummy looking items, but we couldn’t try them all (not even us). We walked by several booths roasting barrels of green chiles, too, as we wandered through some art booths. The smell got better and better as we walked around. It was probably good that we left before we got hungry again.

While at the market, we spotted a woman expressing her thoughts on the impending election (see picture!). It reminds us of how refreshing it is to be in New Mexico after Utah and Arizona. In general it is far more liberal here and while we see very few presidential campaign signs, they have been exclusively for Hillary.

Back in the car again and headed south past Albuquerque and on to Socorro. There was really not a lot to see on the drive. Rolling brown hills leading to distant brown mountains, all covered with sage, and clear blue skies. The freeway paralleled the path of the Rio Grande and we could see the wide green swath of trees marking the course of the river. Along the river it seemed to be a continuous series of farming communities. We saw some vineyards and orchards and overall it was reminiscent of the Yakima valley.

Socorro was once a large and bustling mining town that even had its own opera house, which is still standing. It is also the home of the New Mexico mining college, but it is a very sleepy town now. The town plaza was nearly empty except for a small group of Hispanic men strumming guitars and singing, and the Capitol Bar had a BBQ grill emitting wonderful smells that wafted across the square. One footnote to the political comment above: here we’ve seen two Trump signs! Egads! But it is very rural here.

We stopped in a gallery of local artists and the shopkeeper asked if we were there for the 49ers and Mike, being the smartass he is, said he didn’t know they played in Socorro. Either she didn’t get it or pretended she didn’t hear and explained that it was a big reunion of the mining college, the 49er Miners. That’s what the big BBQ at the Capitol Bar was all about, but that was winding down now. We said we were just passing through from Santa Fe to Silver City, and she did seem to think we were actually from Santa Fe. Oh well, no matter. Then another local wandered into the shop and asked if we were there for the trains. Or that’s what Mike and Tami heard, and we were both wondering where they were keeping trains in this little town, and what were they doing with the trains? But then we realized she said ‘cranes’ because she went on to talk about birds and show us pictures of cranes. Aaah! That makes more sense. Apparently at this time of year they are migrating through and many birders show up to enjoy them.

Before arriving in town, Mike had done his research and had spotted a brewpub in town, Socorro Springs Brewery. After our initial drive through town we realized that this was probably the best choice and after our brief wander around the small town square we found our way to the pub and some baby back ribs accompanied by some good brews, of course. Oops! We ate them before pictures again, but tomorrow we’ll do better!

Now we are back in our room watching college football (alas, no Huskies this week, but the Cougs are on) and just finished checking in with Keenan to make sure the house is still standing and he is not being blown out to sea. Sounds like he has it all completely under control, which is great to hear!