World United States Arizona Tonopah

Vince & Sue's Travel Homepage 2011 Triangle Tour

Arizona Nov 10, 2011

I woke up to another cold morning. Fortunately nothing froze overnight. My goal today was to drive across most of Arizona to spend the night in Quartzsite, AZ. Didn't make it. We only got as far as Tonopah, about 45 miles west of Phoenix. We hit Phoenix at the height of rush hour and there was about 15 or 20 miles of crawling in heavy traffic.

Leaving Lordsburg this morning, I had a choice of staying on I10 or taking US 70 and US 60 to Phoenix and saving 50 or 60 miles. According to Google and the GPS both would take about the same amount of time. I chose the scenic route, Old West Scenic Highway. No surprise there. We went through small towns like Safford, Pima, and Thatcher which are all located in an agricultural valley where cotton seems to be the main crop. It's cotton harvest time. We also passed through the Bylas Apache Reservation. This route had a few more hills that we would have seen on the Interstate. I saw quite a few bikers (not motorcycles) traveling the road.

I stopped for lunch in Globe, AZ and ate at Joe's Broad Street Grill. The waitress said the hamburgers were good, and she was right. They are hand made half-pounders (see picture). The menu said they served "pasties" on Thursdays, but they were all gone by the time I got there. Apparently Joe was a "Uper" before he moved to Arizona and brought the "pasties" with him. If you've been following our adventures over the last 3 years, Sue and I had pasties when we traveled through the Upper Peninsula of Michigan in 2009. I thought they were okay, but I'm sure Sue would disagree. Unfortunately, Joe died this past July and the restaurant is under new management.

While passing through Miami, I saw an old gas station that caught my eye so I stopped for some pictures. It looks like somebody is trying to restore the gas station and has a lot of old cars that are in various states of repair (disrepair?). There wasn't anybody around to find out more about what was going on.

The road from Miami to Phoenix was uphill much of the way and then a long downhill run through saguaro country to Phoenix. Sue and I traveled this road in 2005 when we vacationed in Scottsdale. The road runs by the Superstition Mountains, home of the Lost Dutchman's Mine before entering suburban Phoenix.

We are spending the night at Saddle Mountain RV Park. Looks like a place where alot of snowbirds come to spend the winter. We should be in California tomorrow. I hope to be able to get to the Bakersfield area. We'll see.