I hope everyone had a safe and Happy New Year! Brian and I celebrated with friends on New Year's Eve and then took advantage of the weekend by taking a little day trip up the Apache Trail.
Sadly, we were pretty unprepared and neither one of us had a working camera at our disposal so we stopped at Wal-Mart on the way out of town and bought a "disposable" digital camera. You definitely get what you pay for and we did not pay very much so I took advantage of the low quality photos to play around with some fun photo editing effects I've been wanting to try out. Not the greatest pics ever, but at least we have some record of the trip! :)
First, we stopped at Goldfield Mine. It was a mining town in the late 1800's and now is one of the many tourist-y ghost towns in Arizona.
I'd have to say once of the best parts was the little gift shop that sold a huge variety of salsas, BBQ sauces, and jellies. We picked up a jar of pomegranate jelly and it is d-lish!
The town is full of people dressed in period costumes and every day they reenact an Old West gunfight. It was pretty entertaining and VERY loud! I got a picture with the "Sheriff" and he was hilarious! Just look at him giving me the evil eye... too funny!
Before we left, we made sure to go on the mine tour. The "underground mine" has of course been replicated for the purposes of the tour, but you definitely get an idea of the conditions the miners worked in back in those days (this is a picture of their toilet). I much prefer sitting at a computer for 8 hours!
After leaving Goldfield, we planned to continue up to Roosevelt Lake and then head back down through Globe but, unfortunately, the road was closed for repairs (which I would have remembered if I had actually paid attention to the ADOT "Road Closures" email I get every week. Oops!). So, we headed back down to Tortilla Flat for some lunch. Now, as a side note, the weather turned quite chilly for Arizonans this past week. Parts of the Valley got snow on Thursday and the temp dipped below freezing Friday night. So when we saw icicles on the way back down Apache Trail we, of course, had to pull over and take some pictures!
Once we reached Tortilla Flat we stopped at Superstition Saloon (the only restaurant) for some grub. I wish we had taken more pictures of this place because it was so fun inside. The interior walls are COVERED with dollar bills and business cards that patrons have signed and left over the past 20 years. The seats at the bar are actual horse saddles and there are huge snake skins and other "artifacts" covering the walls.
While taking it all in, I noticed that we were coincidentally seated right under the "Thom Easterday for Surveyor" sign. I couldn't point it out to Brian fast enough! (For those of you who don't know, Brian is a Land Surveyor)
The menu stated that they had the "Biggest Burgers" so Brian and I split a BBQ Bacon Cheeseburger. While very tasty, it was by no means the biggest (smashburger still holds the #1 place in our book). Sooooo, I just HAD to stop and get ice cream afterwards. *wink wink*
It was nice to just be able to enjoy the gorgeous scenery on the way home. I love seeing all the unexpected colors that pop out in the desert. Whoever thinks the desert is "just brown" is seriously mistaken.
All in all it was a fabulous way to start 2011! I've been working on a few crafty things that I hope to share with you in the next few days (as soon as we get a working camera back! Haha!). Until then, I hope all of you take some time to enjoy the new year and relish the possibilities it holds!
See ya!
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