Wednesday June 22

Leaving Apache Junction at 8:09.  One of our camping neighbors suggested a good breakfast within walking distance at Sundance Bar and Restaurant.  He promised that the waitress was the funniest ever and he was right.  The locals flooded in for their coffee, breakfast, and conversation – getting up to pour their own coffee and then working each of the tables, including those that were not local (us)

The waitress was a graveled – voiced desert rat who was loud and called everyone “young’un”.  With slightly off color comments and teasing for all.  She waited tables her whole life and we saw her handle 7 large fully loaded plates as if were nothing. 

The decor was “Arizona”  with paintings of the desert, horses, and native Americans.  Pottery, feathers, horse shoes, and a strangely decorated ladder graced the walls and counters.  Three beautiful potted orchids seemed and odd addition to the eclectic collection to Arizona kitsch.

Back to the trailer to finish packing up and pull out.  Our route today is east on Highway 60 to Globe Arizona and then south east on Highway 70 to intersect Interstate 10 at Lordsburg New Mexico and then due east on to Las Cruces and then south to El Paso.

Leaving Apache Junction on 60 we head towards the Superstition Mountains.  The old mining town of Superior (1882) is at the foot at the southern end of the mountains where they say a fortune lies in the Lost Dutchman Mine. 

The next towns of Miami, Claypool, and Globe are also old mining towns- originally silver but it looks like borax or something.  Globe’s historic down town and museum look very attractive as we drove through. 

Coming out of the mountains we dropped down into a large agricultural valley, the Gila Valley.  There are acres of mostly alfalfa, some cotton, cattle and horse ranches.  This was a very surprising sight after soo much desert.  Of course all of these fields are surrounded by desert ( it is surprising what you  can do with just a little water).  We spent most of the afternoon driving the length of this valley and then it was back into the desert. 

Out on the flat desert we passed a sign announcing the Continental Divide at 4,825 ft.   This seemed counter intuitive.  The Continental Divide that Yvonne knew as a kid was 14,000 ft. and covered in snow. 

A little earlier   we had begun to pass signs for “Taylor Freeze”.  These were hand painted signs every mile or so (much like the Burma Shave signs of yester year) advertizing SHAKES, FREEZES, ROOT BEER FLOATS, BURGERS, FRIES.  Now we had had a great breakfast but the relentless bombardment of these signs began to convince us that it was time for a mid morning snack.  Besides the temperature had risen to 103 and even in the truck it was hot. And that Root Beer Float would cool our brows.  We entered the little strip town on the lookout for Taylor Freeze.   We spotted it.  It was an old-school drive-in.  We turned in only to find the “CLOSED UNTIL JUNE 25” sign in the window.  NO-O-O-O!!!!! We cried pounding on the steering wheel.  WE NEEDED THAT ROOT BEER FLOAT. 

Disappointed we found a Sonic Drive-in a little further down the road and pulled in but it was not the same. 

We intersected Interstate 10 at Lordsburg New Mexico and turned east for Las Cruces the land became green again and we had more agriculture because this valley was along the Rio Grand River.   At Los Cruces we turned south and were in El Paso in 45 minutes. 

The McMillan’s live on the north west side of El Paso which, because of the Franklin mountains and the Rio Grande River is shaped like a capital “W”.  When we arrived, we backed the trailer up their driveway not realizing how steep it was.  There was no way to make it level and their guest room was ready for us so we went in and settled in for a wonderful evening of drinking red wine, catching up and laughter.