It's another sunny day with temp of 19 and clear skies. We left around 11 from Tucson via Hwy 77 via Oro Valley ...first through dry hills of cacti....Sauaro, Cholla and Ochotilla.
Mammoth to Superior, past the Copper Canyon mines.....huge open pit copper mines with huge tailing mountains...certainly not pretty!! ..to Globe, then Hwy 188 to Roosevelt Lake .....which is a huge man made lake named for Teddy Roosevelt when the dam was completed in 1911...to Payson, then Hw260 toCamp ......In Superior we stopped at Porters Cafe for ice tea..We watched as the cook took pickle jars of tea bags, water and lemons and put them in the sun to infuse..the cafe was an old fashioned saloon with dollar bills and flags and pictures from everywhere... Looked like they had good food as well.. We followed the Tonto National forest ....red cliffs and scrub bush with lots of cacti to forests of Ponderosa pine around Pine and strawberry where we entered Coconino National Forest..It's Apache country. Before Camp Verde a high plateau with grassland and small evergreen Cyprus trees across the grasslands...ranch country....white faced black cattle..... Only 52 C as we are around 6000 ft.... .Mt Mingus Elevat 7000 ft in the distance west ......rock less red , driving via a river valley/gorge....looks like the Cypress Hills in S Alta. eventually we split to Hwy to Sedona. We are staying at the Views Motel which is cheap but pretty basic. It's only 100 per night and seems clean.. We went to the Market place Restaurant for dinner which is around the corner... Live band of 2 playing 70s music and all the locals dancing and partying... Food was ordinary but had Alaska Amber ale which was pretty good.Hamburger was pretty bad though....the place closed at 9:00? So we are back at the motel for an early night. Tomorrow we are going to explore Sedona and the Red Rocks..
North to Sedona
Wednesday, November 12, 2014
Tucson, Arizona, United States
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2025-02-14