Tucson and Beyond

We left Cave Creek on Monday morning.  Traveled down to Douglas, then up through Bisbee and Tombstone to Benson.  We had planned to stop in Bisbee for a couple of hours, but there was nowhere to park.  The one vacant dirt lot that would accomadate a truck and trailer was blocked off, and signs were everywhere stating autos only, within the town.  After doing a couple of loops aroud a traffic circle, we gave it up and proceeded on toward Benson.  We have a dear friend that was at an Escapees park in Benson.   We wanted to spend some time with him before moving on to Tucson.

Benson is an old railroad town. Much like the town we live near.  The railroad was the backbone of the economy once upon a time.  Now Benson depends as much on the snowbirds that arrive each Winter as anything else.

It still has that old town feel.  The main street parallels the railroad, and most of the buildings date to ther early 1900’s.  Our favorite place there is the Horseshoe Cafe.  It dates back to the early 1930’s and still has the looks of an old 1950’s cafe.  Tables, stools, and booths; with a neon horseshoe on the ceiling.

Have you seen one of these, lately.  Each booth came equipped with one.  Judging from the price, I think it’s been awhile since it was used.

                       

We arrived at Gilbert Ray campground and spent five days there.  We did a couple of road trips. One up Mt. Lemmon and another toward Green Valley and Nogales.  That’s Tucson down there.

Some random pictures from around the campground.

                         

                             

We visited San Xavier Mission.  Founded in 1692.  Look it up. Amazing history.

We made it to Lost Dutchman state park near Apache Junction, AZ  There we met up again with Lynne and David. 

Lynne and I did a four mile hike to the “basin”.

                      

                   

The campground is down there somewhere.

We had friends that live in Apache Junction come out and prepare us all a delicious meal of pot roast and vegetables in the dutch oven.  It was absolutely delicious.  I intended to get a picture of the finished product before we dug in, “but”. It sure is nice to have friends in far places.

On another day we took the drive up to Tortilla Flat, and on beyond to the bottom of Fish Creek Canyon on Arizona Hwy 88.  If you look hard you can see the road hanging on the side of the mountain.

This is a very condensed version of our last ten days or so.  We move on toward Quartzite tomorrow.  On a side note; when we were visiting with our friend Ed in Benson, he said that he had some good friends staying in Lost Dutchman that he wanted us to meet.  Would you believe that in a campground of over 130 sites, we wound up parked next to each other.  We have really enjoyed visiting with Gaila. Dick is a long diatance hiker and Gaila dropped him off on a trailhead Tuesday morning, and he isn’t scheduled to be back before we leave Lost Dutchman tomorrow.  Hope we can meet up with them again someplace soon….jc