Playing Hooky, Another Dinner and Desert Drive

On Thursday, Jan and Don’s instructor Sandy Kruty had to take her hubby to the doctor, so Bill, Jan, Don and I played hooky and drove up the mountain to the wonderful town of Prescott. Quaint shops and restaurants surround a central plaza with the courthouse and this lovely gazebo.

“Whiskey Row” is famous for its rich history and is also the setting for street parties during the summer. The city will celebrate its Sesquicentennial (150 years) around the end of May, and I’m sure it will be one grand party!

There are many historic landmarks in town, like this Bank of Arizona.

The Masonic Temple adjoins the Prescott National Bank Building. There must have been a lot of money in circulation in the early days of Prescott, to have two large banks across the street from each other.

The Elks Theatre is undergoing a major facelift.

We enjoyed a nice lunch at the Caffé Bistro on the main floor of the Hotel St. Michael.

Shops contain many tourist souvenirs and some unique items found nowhere else, like this unusual U.S. map made of 50 state license plates.

It was hard to get a good picture of these Whiskey Row boots because of the sun’s reflection on the window. But check out those extremely long pointed toes!

Bill had to admire all the neat Western items. Need some horns?

On the way back down the hill to Congress we stopped at an overlook. The views were amazing in spite of a little haze. Prescott’s elevation is 5400 ft., whereas North Ranch in Congress is about 2800 ft. The driving distance is about 50 miles, but is closer as the crow flies due to lots of winding roads.

The curvy road is split on the side of the mountain, with the uphill lanes on the lower level and the downhill lanes just visible as a horizontal ridge above them.

The next day (Fri) Lonnie Hodge and Becky Hazen arrived, so the 6 of us went to Tumbleweeds, a fairly new restaurant in Wickenburg. Everyone enjoyed their dinner including a “shot of dessert” served in a shot glass. Sorry I didn’t get a picture.

Notice the lariat on the wall above? One of the workshop instructors taught a class on making bowls/baskets using lariats. Here’s one she made, and I liked it so well I bought it.

Jan liked it also, so she took the class and made herself one.

Today is the final one for the week of workshops. Everyone has finished up their projects, with some putting the final touches on and/or getting advice from the instructors for future projects. Here are Don’s finished pieces. I have just the place for the Kokopelli on a wall above the sofa in our motorhome.

And Don hopes his son Craig likes the Senior Explosive Ordnance Disposal Badge. This is the only occupational badge awarded to all four services under the U.S. Department of Defense (Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps). Craig earned his during his years in the Army, and has made EOD his career.

After a delicious breakfast of build-your-own burritos, while Bill worked on a new carving project, Don and Jan and I went to a local flea market. We didn’t see anything we wanted to buy but we had some interesting conversations with a few local residents, and Jan thought about how this horse planter would look in her yard.

We were surprised at the amount of traffic, especially trucks, on the dirt road going to Stanton.

This is more like the type of vehicles we expected to see.

Here’s the entrance to Stanton’s Lost Dutchman’s Mining Association camp.

Members of a gold prospecting party were chasing a runaway burro in 1863 when they stumbled upon large gold nuggets in this area. Stanton was established then and prospered for awhile, but became a ghost town in later years. The LDMA purchased the land in 1978 and began restoring some of the buildings, including the Hotel.

The Opera House has also been restored, although it’s not as attractive from the rear.

An RV park was built around the town, and quite a few new full hookup sites have recently been added.

The RV park may be a modern addition to the town, but this resident is clinging to an older way of life, except for solar panels on the roof!

Sorry this blog became so long, but we were doing so much I didn’t have time to write daily. Tomorrow we will depart North Ranch and move to Tucson.