Apache Junction,AZ

 Hello friends and family

The mountains in Arizona are much like New Mexico. You fall in love with them. As the light strikes them at different angles throughout the day they change so much. You get en entirely different perspective throughout the day.

While in Arizona we did a lot of hiking and driving around in the mountains. The scenery was incredible. The weather was great in the mid 70's and cool at night.

Are these not gorgeous?

While driving around in the mountains we cam across this old mining town, Goldfield, established in 1893. Some of the original buildings and the ones that aren't original were reproduced through photos of the town.

We packed a picnic lunch one day and drove to Canyon Lake in the near by mountains.

What a beautiful drive we had.

You begin to get an idea of how the Grand Canyon came to be. Also look at the variety of colors beginning to show in the rock.

On our way back down the mountain we came across another mining town.

This is just so typical of the Arizona terrain.

We hiked to the top of this mountain. The dark spot you see just to the right of the straight cactus in the foreground is the cave we hiked to.

This is pretty typical of the desert floor where we were hiking. It definitely has it's own beauty.

You can see here how high up we were and you are looking at the good part of the trail.  At times we were climbing over boulders. When we got back down I asked Lee,"Did you ever look at the difficulty of the hike?" Well no. I looked down at the trails guide and yes it was listed as the most difficult. Nicky is 10 now and had no difficulty getting up but slipped on a boulder coming down and hit his hip. Lee ended up carrying him over some of the boulders going down.

And we came up here why???????
Just kidding it was worth it.

You are in this arid country but look at all the colors.

This was our campground.  countryside and Encore park. The view of the mountains from here was gorgeous.
I will next to talking to you from Winterhaven,CA which is just past Yuma, AZ. While there we will be crossing the border at Los Algodonos into Mexico and having some dental work done. We have worked with this same dentist before. Dr. Ramous, our dentist says he does excellent work.

Look forward to sharing with you all again soon. Love to all.