Arizona Part 2

Tuesday, July 23, Day 92

We headed down the highway marveling at the beautiful landscape.  No wonder Arizona can devote a monthly magazine to its beautiful scenery.

Maybe if we don't look, those clouds will go away!

This has to be part of that Mogollon Rim of limestone and sandstone.

All of a sudden we came to the Salt River Canyon.  It was breathtaking!  The river has cut such deep gorges, and the recent storms has washed away a lot of sand and soil.

We traveled on steep hairpin turns to get to the bottom of the canyon and crossed a bridge.  My sister Beverly remembers pulling a trailor down this grade and just barely keeping it on the road!

Hard to imagine how much silt this water contains.  

Climbing up the other side, we are on the San Carlos Indian Reservation. It's a story of corrupt Indian agents who kept or sold the provisions meant for the Indians.  Some Indians were sent to reservations in Florida.

And several tribes were eventually consolidated onto this reservation, despite them being from different backgrounds and customs. I guess all Indians looked alike to the government and agents!   The reservation today has about 9300 people and 3000 acres.  They are among the poorest Indian tribes in the US with 60% living below the poverty line and 68% unemployment.

We are headed into mining territory.  Copper is big out here and you can see the mines on the far hills.   The terraced area in front has already been mined.

We passed through Globe, population 7500, probably mostly miners, although they are trying to develop a tourist industry.

Here's where we are.

This is copper mining in Superior Arizona.

Then we passed through these rock formations on windy roads…

And found ourselves in territory looking more like Phoenix.  We watched the temperature rise, 102-4-5-6 and we headed around the Superstition Mountains, and Silly Mountain.

We got through Phoenix in rush hour, watching the temperatures hold steady at 106 degrees.  And we stoopped for the night just the other side of Phoenix in Buckeye.  It was a huge RV parking lot, but nobody was there, because it's for the Snow Birds who come in the winter.  You could see the heat rising from the totally asphalt RV campground.  And it was 97 in the camper.  There were no green trees, no grass, etc.  We always hate it when we get close to the end of our trip in a place like this.

Wednesday, July 24, Day 93

 We were out at 8 am, and the temperature was already 90 degrees!  We passed through Gila Bend and we saw some incredible solar projects along the road.  This particular one is 400 acres and has 170,000 "single axis tracker modules", making enough electricity for 8000 homes.  And it is one of four such solar plants in the immediate area!

Couldn't resist this picture of Sentinal, AZ.  What you see is the extent of it.  The middle of no where indeed!

The terrain has flattened out and we can see the mountains in the distance. I couldn't find a name for the mountain range, but there are lots of individual mountains out there.