Feb. 6, 2011
Now we’ve begun to explore the area a bit. Some 20 kilometers from Fountain Hills is Saguaro Lake. The scenery is stunning with rolling hills, sage brush, cactus of all
shapes and sizes. The center piece is the lake which is popular for fishing 15 to 20 kg catfish.
Separately we also drove to Payson, a small town about 100 km east of here. It’s much higher in elevation than Fountain Hills; there was 20 cm on snow left on the ground after a large storm had blown through. If it had not been for the fact that it was lunch time and we were hungry, we would have blown outta there ourselves! The scenery between Fountain Hills and Payson is simply awesome turns from rolling hills t
o mountains going over a high point where huge, rounded, smooth boulders suddenly appear as if thrown up from the center of the earth itself. The flora changes from cactus to evergreens…and the temperature drops accordingly. “Crank up the heat, Martha!!” Lots of hawks in one area, many perched, though very gingerly, on the top of tall Saguaro cactus to oversee the landscape for their next meal. The cactus are so numerous in places it looks like a dense forest.
In Payson an old man ahead of us comes into a round-about…and turns the wrong way directly into oncoming traffic. Luckily traffic was light. The first vehicle meeting him was a postal truck whose driver gets out to explain to the old gentleman that the world has changed since cars were invented. The driver continues to insist “But I just want to go there! I just want to go…there!!!” We thought it appropriate that it was a postal employee giving directions. And could the driver have been from England??
We finally saw a road runner. No…not the lets-go-the-shortest-way-in-the-round-about-driver. Road runner…the flightless bird that when in danger just puts its head down and floors it. This guy was crossing a four land street in Fountain Hills. Willy E. Coyote was nowhere in sight.
In our last blog we mentioned Bill and Anna and their 1937 replica BMW purchased in China. Here’s a photo of them. Just a few days ago they told us they were in the
process of buying a brand new Harley and planning to go across the country. They’re in their seventies. “Come on you young whipper snappers…keep up!!!”
Some 45 minutes north of here is Carefree (how great is that?), a small town which once a year hold an art festival. One street blocked of for the displays was Easy Street (how great is that…again?). Over 175 high-end artists from around the world were showing, and selling at high prices, beautiful pieces. Funky blown glass, totally differently decorated gourds, incredible photography, and all types of painting including cowboys and horses done by Chinese artists. The neatest pieces were two meter tall metal fountains where the water came out of tiny holes near the top and totally disappeared in tiny holes near the bottom with not a drop reaching the ground! With this being outside in sunny weather and embraced by southwestern desert scenery, it was magical.
Last week was the Bead Museum in Glendale part of greater Phoenix. This is something Dawn really wanted to see. It turned out to be very interesting with displays of bead work from all over the world and times, some as old as 3000 years.
And closer to us we found out at an open house of a jewelry store that some of the best and most beautiful amethyst stones in the world at mined near town part way up a mountain called Four Peaks, a key landmark in the area. The miners, a small group, hike in 15 km one way and stay two weeks before hiking back out again.
With this much touring we gave in and purchased a GPS. They are fantastic to use and Dawn the Map Reader can now lift her head to see the scenery. The added bonus…Dawn doesn’t get us lost any more.
We’re still riding lots though Dan broke a spoke on his road bike at the start of a climb. Sounded like a gunshot and because a broken spoke will distort the wheel, his ride was over for the day. We did stay off the bikes for a few days because of the crazy cold weather that’s just hit the area. The rest of the US and Canada were
getting boatloads of snow followed by cold weather and that pushed below freezing air our way. Yup…that’s snow on the Four Peaks! Cold enough to freeze the water in small fountains around town. A cactus with a layer of ice is an odd spectacle. The temperatures were the coldest on record for southern Arizona. Stinking Canadians!!!
