TRIP TO MESA, ARIZONA - MARCH 19 - 23, 2019

Tuesday, March 19th - Fly to Mesa

Since Dad and Sue and snow birds now, we decided to visit them during their stay in Arizona.  Allegiant Air has a direct flight from Grand Rapids to the Phoenix - Mesa Gateway airport.  It's a direct flight, super cheap and both airports are small and easy to get in and out of.  Dad and Sue were there to greet us when we arrived.  Instantly, we were sweating since we just came from 30 degree weather and landed in 75 degree weather.  They drove us to the 55 and over mobile home park where they rent a trailer next to their St. Johns friends Les and Martha.

Dad and Su's rental.  No one has grass around here.  It's all different colored stones and rocks.  And no one needs garages.  Everyone just has carports.  Les and Martha's place is just to the right.  Movie cactus in the front!

Once we arrived, Dad and Su were eager to show us around.  We hopped in the car and headed out to see some wild horses.  We went to this place called Coon Bluff campground on the Salt River.  I have to say, the countryside was like out of a movie.  It was so surreal to see the 'movie cactuses' everywhere!

Wild horses!!!

The little one was curious and got really close to us!

Wednesday, March 20, 2019 - Morning run, Hike the Hieroglyphic Trail, Drive to Tortilla Flats, Visit Goldfield Ghost town.

Since I was training for a marathon at the time, I had to get a couple of long runs in during our time in Arizona.  So, first thing in the morning, we got up to do a long run.  Dad wouldn't let me run alone, so Gary had to ride Les's bike along side me.  The first day I only ran 9 miles.  It was an easy, flat run and we had sidewalks to run along the entire way.  The route I took went along the old US Route 66, which was kind of cool.  We saw a lot of old, neon signs along this street.  I'll post them all together at the end.

After the run, a shower and some breakfast, we decided to hike this Hieroglyphic Trail that I had read about online.  The trail was near Apache Junction and was about 3 miles round trip.  All the reviews I read about it online said that it was a fairly easy hike and it ended at a watering hole where there were ancient hieroglyphs from the Hohokam Indians that are around 1500 years old.

At first, I thought maybe just Gary, Dad and I would hike.  But, Su seemed up for it, so she went too.  Dad and Su were just not used to hiking on uneven terrain like Gary and I were, so we ended up going ahead of them and getting to the watering hole first.

I kept checking my Find-a-friend app to see where Dad and Su were.  At first I thought maybe they ended up going back to the car.  Gary and I decided to walk back.  We didn't get very far when we ran into Dad and Su.  They did not seem very happy at the moment, but we assured them that the end was just around the corner and that they were almost there!

We couldn't have been a 5 minute walk from the watering hole when Su tripped and fell on the rocks.  Gary and I looked at each other like "oh FFFFFFFF".  We picked her up and dusted her off.  Thank God she didn't break anything!  She just scraped her knee and her elbow.  We got her sat down and dad and Su rested for a bit before making the hike back.  It was a little easier going back since it was slightly downhill.

Fun fact: The cactuses are called Saguaros.  Most people mistakenly call them Sequoias.  They are only found in this part of the country.  They are protected and you are not allowed to cut them down or vandalize them.

Those crazy cactuses!

I found it odd that 1500 year old hieroglyphs were just out in the open for anyone to touch and step on.  They are not really protected in any way.

The oasis in the desert!  Lots of kids hiked up here to swim

Dad, Su and I

When we finally arrived back to the car, I figured that Dad and Su would be spent.  But they were all up for driving to Tortilla Flat for lunch.  Mileage wise, it really wasn't that far from where we were.  However, because it's a 2-lane, windy road going up into the mountains, it took a good hour to drive the 20-30 miles there.

First stop at Canyon Lake on the Apache Trail road to Tortilla Flat

Tortilla Flat.  This is it.  It's an old stage coach stop on the Apache Trail.  Once you get past here, the road turns to dirt and it's basically unmaintained.  Although, we did watch a Tesla drive up that way, but those are not normal cars. haha

They staple dollars everywhere inside

The water was so high in the creek that it just flowed right over the road!  Although the weird thing is that it seemed like the road was actually built for the water to flow over it.  So, that must happen quite often.

View across the street from Tortilla Flat

 After our late lunch, we decided to head back to the house.  But, we had to make one more stop at the Goldfield ghost town.  By the time we got there, all the stores and tours were closed for the day.  We weren't too heartbroken because walking through the 'ghost' town was good enough for us! haha

So this place seemed pretty cheesy.  But it was cool to walk through.

Never saw a rattle snake....kind of glad I didn't!!!

Thursday, March 21st - Morning Run, Dad MIA because of NCAA, toured around Mesa.

The one lesson I learned while visiting my dad and Sue while they were in Arizona is to never, ever, ever again visit during the NCAA tournament.  Dad was out of communication with the world for several hours on Thursday, so Gary, Sue and I decided to tour around Mesa.

My dad's position for all of Thursday until after MSU played

 The first place we went to was this huge estate sale warehouse that Sue wanted to check out.  I'm not really into shopping on vacation when I can shop at home, but we had time to kill so we decided to check it out.  It actually wasn't bad at all.  They had a lot of nice things for sale.  All I bought was this orange blossom candle there. haha.

The first second place we went to was Park of the Canals.  These irrigation canals were built by the Hohokam Indians.  I was pretty excited to see them...

Needless to say, it's pretty disappointing.  The canals really just look like ditches.  There is no brick foundation or anything that would make you think this was a canal.  And the city filled in most of them...they only kept a few 1000 feet or so.  I guess I expected to see something out of the Roman empire, but all we saw was this...

This is the 'preserved prehistoric irrigation canal'

 Next on our list was to visit the Mesa Cemetery.  Waylon Jennings is buried there and lots of people still honor him.

I thought it was cool that people still put liquor bottles, cigarettes, and guitar pics on Waylon's grave

 Another 'famous' person buried at the same cemetery is Erneto Maranda.  You have probably heard of 'having your Miranda rights' read to you.  Well, these rights were created because of this guy.  It's not a great story though.  This guy basically lived his whole life as a dirt bag (kidnapping, rape and robbery).  Even though he confessed to these crimes, his original case was thrown out because he was not aware that "anything he said could be used against him and he has a right to an attorney etc...".

I am glad that we have these Miranda Rights in place now to protect people; however, it is too bad it had to be put in place because of some criminal.  I do not feel bad when I say that I am glad that he did end up getting convicted of another crime he committed and eventually he was stabbed to death in prison.  Not surprisingly, no one decorates his grave...

During the depression, people didn't have money to bury their loved ones in proper graves with gravestones.

There is a section where British soldiers are buried.

Before we left the cemetery, I wanted to try an orange from one of the numerous orange trees scattered throughout the grounds.  The smell is so nice.  In fact, I swear all of Mesa smelled like orange blossoms the entire time we were there.  I would have thought that Arizona was too dry for orange trees, but they were everywhere!  Anyway, I grabbed an orange from a random tree.  Sue warned me though that it would probably taste bad.  How the heck could an orange taste bad??  She explained that they get weird if they are not harvested in time or they taste weird if they are not cultivated properly.  I had to try for myself.  So, I opened up the orange and took a bite.  Holy crap it was terrible.  It was super sour and had tons of seeds.  I couldn't believe it!!  Of course, they teased me that it was a cemetery orange and was probably born out of dead bodies!

Next on our list was to visit the Orange Patch - This place is just a farm that sells all things orange.  we bought a few gigantic oranges for a couple bucks and Sue got a little ice cream cone.

After the orange patch, it was late enough in the day that dad was done watching his NCAA games for bit.  So, we drove home and picked him up.  We headed to the Superstition Mountain Museum.

The museum contains an actual museum that houses a bunch of information about the Gold Rush era of the mid-1800s.
The other part of the 'museum' are these buildings that you can tour that were part of the Apacheland Movie Set.  I do not think they filmed the movies at that exact location.  If I remember correctly, the actual set was at a different location not too far away.  They filmed a bunch of Western movies there, but some fire destroyed the whole place.  I think the handful of buildings that survived were moved to this new location and became part of the Superstition Mountain Museum.  It was a little cheesy, but kind of cool to see.

Supposedly there's a buried treasure somewhere up in the mountains!!! No one has ever found it!

The buildings of the Apacheland Movie Ranch

Apparently, Elivs filmed some movies in this Vegas style church

Creepy Elvis

This is such a joke with my dad.  He goes on and on about how Arizona heat is different from Michigan heat.  I sincerely thought he was full of crap, until I actually ran a race out west.  I am not a believer in the 'but it's a dry heat' saying.  95 degrees in humid Michigan is WAY different then 95 degrees in Arizona.  It's all because of the humidity differences.

After the museum, Sue wanted to show us this cool old abandoned hotel.  At the time, we really didn't know the history of the building, it just looked really interesting.  After doing some Googling, we found out that this couple started this hotel back in the early 1900s.  At the time, the hotel was way out in the desert....the city doesn't surround it, like it does now.  The couple discovered hot springs in the area when they were looking for water.  They opened up this hotel to cater to the rich and to baseball players that wanted to take in a spa treatment after a hard day of training.  The couple ran the hotel for a long time.  Eventually, the husband passed away and the wife was unable to run the place anymore.  Also, the city grew and people were not travelling down Route 66 like they used to.  The hotel closed and became abandoned.  Apparently, a guy does own it now and he is trying to restore it somehow.  We were not able to go inside any of the buildings, but we got some cool pictures.

We were guessing that you could rent one of these little cabins to stay in.  Not sure if there was a special spa inside each building or not.  We couldn't get any closer because there were signs telling us not to trespass. 

It's hard to read, but the 'wildlife museum' that was onsite was the owners own person collection of taxidermy game animals.  The pictures I saw in the book I bought looked really creepy! I believe there's nothing of it left there now.

Friday, March 22 - Last full day in Mesa: Long morning run, Visit Pioneer Park, Riparian Preserve Water Ranch, Bike ride and ended with a Fish Fry.

First thing in the morning, I had to get in one last long run.  I ran, while Gary biked along side me.  We made it to Pioneer Park, walked around the park and then headed back for a grand total of 14 miles.

Weirdly, the sign on this partial foundation explains how Mormons founded the city and I guess this building was one of the first buildings erected.  

decommissioned train in Pioneer Park

 After showering and breakfast, we decided to head to this Water Ranch preserve to check it out.  It's just a big park with trails and little lakes for wildlife.  We spent a few hours just walking around it.

bunny!

Can't remember what kind of bird this is, but it has a funny head piece.  Maybe some kind of pheasant or partridge? 

There was a morning dove nesting in the hole of this cactus. Hard to see in the picture because it's dark.

 After the water preserve, we headed back to the house for the afternoon.  Gary and I decided to do one more afternoon bike ride to try and capture all the 1960's road signs along the main Mesa drag.  They are really cool and I wish we could have seen them all lit up at night.
The only one that we saw at night was the diving girl hotel sign.  I have a video of it, but for some reason it's sideways when I took it off my phone.  UGH!!!
After our bike ride, we took in a good old fashion fish fry at the local golf club.  Sue is Catholic, so she really likes to do the fish fries.

A guy who lived down the road from Dad and Sue had Christmas lights on his yard cactus.  The picture doesn't do it justice. 

Saturday, March 23 - Heading home

We really didn't have much time to do anything before our plane left in the early afternoon.  We just went to a few stores and dinked around.  It was a nice, quick get away to see Dad and Su and take a break from work.  We joked that Dad might have to just slow the car down and kick us out at the airport so he could get back home in time to watch State play...hahaha...luckily, State didn't play until later so we were ok!

Gary and I in front of the massive Saguaro cactus 

Dad and I at the airport.  Until next time Mesa!