We journeyed into nowhere...desolation...a landscape of natural delights and spiraling jagged mountains and hillsides of slippery stone today. No place we traveled was the same on one side of the mountain as it was on the other. There were white rocks in one gully; ruby red rocks glistening from a cliffside on the next turn; full sandstone yellowy formations in a further valley; slope after slope of regimented saguaro forests; and one burbling stream after another to ford with the intrepid Cruiser. We had ourselves "A Day!"
Glo and Al came up from Casa Grande for this foray into the desert outback and Chuy accompanied us, of course. We told Bill to lead us where he wanted to go, we were glad to follow. Bill thought the back side of Picket Post would be a good place to try. He was thinking of a road he'd seen disappear in that direction but never got to follow, so that's where we headed It turned out to the Best of the Best! (so far, at least!) We stopped first at some lichen rocks erupting from the earth into big crumbling sections. They looked like big loaves of bread that hadn't been kneaded well and turned into crumbs when taken out of the pan. They were sturdier than just crumbs, however, and allowed themselves to be climbed and Bill got all the way to the top of the highest peak and took some wide angle shots of the mountains looking back toward Superior. We picked up chunks of rose quartz that was hiding under the brown crusty outside of the rocks (again, like good white bread hiding under an overbacked crust... was I hungry or what?), and we ended up picking up a surprisingly good assortment of rocks. But then Bill could see the road went farther west, so we piled into the Cruiser and continued on.
We traveled up one mountain and skittered and chattered our way down the other side, then ford streams and lumph over boulders and rocks in the streambed. Then we'd start winding our way up the next mountain. On one of those ascents, we moved aside for four ATV's to come past. We asked the leader about the road they'd taken and he said at the next fork, they'd gone left and run out of road. He thought the way to the right was clear. Then he looked longingly at Bill's Cruiser. "I've got one just like yours," he grinned abashed. "But my wife won't let me take it off road." Bill smiled back sympathetically, "That's what they're made for."
At the top of the next mountain, we stopped to take more pictures. We could have been perched on top of the world, we had the whole Superstition Wilderness scattered out before us. You could even see the Weaver's Needle twenty or thirty miles away standing sentinel. As we gathered back into the car, Bill's phone rang. It was startling to get a phone call in the so-called "middle of nowhere". It was our friend, Pam, calling from Dillon Beach. We started jabbering away to her, trying to tell her how gorgeous the view was right from there. And it was equally hard to try and remember that it's still winter and raining in Dillon Beach when it was sunny (though chilly, yes it was!) in Arizona. I couldn't help but feel the wee bit apologetic for having things be so lovely for us.
So that's why I wanted to send this picture today and tell you folks, whereever you are!, that it's just Ducky here in Arizona. And we're having a really lovely time even if we miss you folks at home. And if I haven't met you yet, then you'd better book yourselves a trip to Arizona, for this is just the best place I've had fun in for a coon's age! Look at what you're missing!
