Another fabulous ATV Trip

Wow, time is sure on the move. All of us snow birds are feeling the pressure to get as much exploring done as possible as many of us start heading home this month and next! We woke up last Sunday morning to snow on the Superstition Mountains. It was a beautiful site but we are glad it only lasted for a day. I took a couple of pictures from our RV park in the morning and then a couple more when we were in Apache Junction in the afternoon.

 

Still pretty stormy first thing in the morning

 

Quite a site Arizona doesn't see too often (thank-goodness!)

 

 Main street Apache Junction about 3pm

 

By supper time the snow was pretty well melted off the mountains

 

Flowers are so reasonable down here that Doug bought me a beautiful bouquet of roses

On Thursday the following week, our rock hound group decided to go on another run. Our leader Bruce (he is the only one of us that knows the trails) decided to take us on more old mine exploring and he said he was leaving the best mine to last: an old amethyst mine. We left at about 0930 in the morning and didn't arrive home till almost 7pm! We went 64 miles over some absolutely beautiful country, over boulders, through washes, up and down ledges, saw many, many old mines and found some beautiful pieces of rock with amethyst in it. It was a wonderful warm day that reached 81 degrees by later in the day.

 Starting out on our trip

 As you will see, the scenery is amazing and we could see for miles

 Neat out croppings every where you looked

 We would go over one hill and there would be many more hills as far as the eye could see

 Everywhere you looked, there where roads, so good thing Bruce knew where we were going!

 Up a hill, down a hill

 Doug would have to take a picture of me returning from a bathroom break!

 Never ending scenery

 Lunch break

 We're looking a bit dusty

 Our tradition: group picture: 3 Canadian couples and one American couple

 Back on the road heading east

 Hard to tell from this picture but we are quite high up looking over the edge of the road to the gullies below

 Two of the group already down in the wash and we are half way down

 One of the many old mines, you just come upon them so have to be very careful as they are very deep and you don't want to fall into them. Probably an old copper mine

 Another old mine

 We stopped to view this old mine but at least it had barb wire around it to keep you away

 Looking down at the mine from the side

 Back on the road heading further into the foothills

 Hopefully I am not boring you but every turn we took had more spectacular views

 Loved this picture, the cacti, rocks and colors were so spectacular

 More beautiful scenery

 On top of this hill, we could see for miles

 Off in the distance and down on the flats, you can see the town of Florence

 More hills

 We are heading down out of the hills to a valley below

 Again, good thing Bruce knew where we were going and which road to take!

 Bruce giving me a lesson on rock identification

 Our destination, Box Canyon in the distance

 You got to love these saguaro cacti

 Coming up to Box Canyon

 The sandstone hills are gorgeous. Bruce is laughing at me as he says this is nothing to wait a few minutes!

 We aren't in box canyon yet

 Just about down the hill and into the canyon

 Our first views as we enter the canyon. The lichen on the rocks gives it such a pretty color

 It was a rough up and over boulders and ledges but the scenery so beautiful and actually lots of fun!

 We are driving through a narrow wash so you wouldn't be doing this if any chance of rain!

 Depending on where the sun was shining, determined the color of the rocks

 Just got better as we went along

 It was lovely in the rocks as so much cooler than out in the direct sun

 I thought this was neat picture

 More canyon we drove through

 As went around the corner ahead, we had to go down a ledge of rocks to continue through the canyon

 Doug heading off for a cactus watering break

 I was continually amazed how the saguaro cacti could grow at the top of the mountains where there is no soil what so ever and very minimal rain water!

 Doug knows how to take a break!

 Not sure what Doug was looking at there!

 We are finally heading out of the canyon

 If you look carefully, you can see an old miner's cabin behind the barb wire and trees

 Another mine, this is where we found the amethyst

 The mine itself was collapsing but Doug found a vein off to one side he was able to chip some rock off it

 We know we are on the road home when we can see the Superstition mountains in front of us again off in the distance. We still had to travel another hour and a half to get home though

A couple big chunks of amethyst crystal. You can see the dark purple in the centre. Doug is going to slice these to see if he can get a few small pieces to polish for jewelry

Doug had to take this picture of me cutting out the weekly coupons from the paper!

In my own defense, they have the best coupon deals down here and I save mega dollars each week by using coupons. Most are worth at least $1 and if I wait for the items to come on sale, I often only pay pennies for it and at times walk out of the store with them paying me to buy the item! After all. I am retired and on a fixed pension. It has almost become a  hobby for me.

Now as far as buying a permanent residence down here, no luck so far. Last week when we returned to have a second viewing of a home, and put an offer in, the elderly lady panicked and took the home off the market. Not sure what happened there but I guess she really didn't want to sell!  We looked at many more homes this week but no luck. I guess we'll have to wait till we come back in the fall now.