Temporary Arizona

Howdy folks. With settling in to retirement we do not feel a need to go out and burn the candle at both ends and see everything available in one afternoon. We have been out visiting the local world. Most of our trips start from Wickenberg. The local ghost town is Vulture City. The city became part of the Vulture mine which began in the late 1800s. At it's peak the population was approximately 5000 men, women, and children. The mine shut down in the 1940s, and the town became a ghost town. In it's first heyday it produced  a lot of gold and silver. The mine was bought again and is active today, and still producing. The old days of the mine has a checkered history with 18 hangings for workers stealing
high grade ore on the way off their shift. It is rumored that five of them were because of a murder at the mine. The house in the background is the original home of Henry Wickenberg when he first started the mine back in 1863.

During the time the mine was active in the early days a lot of people died, both adults and children. Those that did not survive are buried in Verde Flat Cemetery located about a half mile down the road from Vulture City. There is only one site that has a name, the rest are just crosses spread out throughout the cemetery. After we left Vulture City we headed back home for the day.

We took a drive to Prescott via the dreaded Arizona 89 North, I was curious why they don't want vehicles over 40 feet long. Initially it didn't look any worse than some of the mountain roads in California, Then we hit the section that removed all my doubts, turns were tight and some areas had an 8% grade. We stopped at Lucy Dee's BBQ for lunch.

Carol and I each ordered a two meat lunch consisting of brisket, ribs, and a cornbread muffin. The difference between our lunches was Carol's sides were a double portion of cole slaw, I had ranch pinto beans and macaroni and cheese. Carol and I were both in agreement, the brisket was dry, the ribs were ok. My guess would be that they did not wrap the brisket while it continued to cook. The ribs had a smoke ring but they kept them in a pan on a steam table. Anyway, after lunch we drove over to Fort Whipple Museum. The fort was stood up about 1863 and was the headquarters for the Calvary during their attempts to "control" the Indians. Once the Indians were "under control", the fort lost it's importance and closed
around 1898, re-garrisoned in 1902, closed down again in 1904. In 1922 the site was

turned over to the Veteran's Administration and turned into a hospital. The museum is located in one of the Officer's quarters and contains many artifacts found on the grounds of the original fort. Several of the other houses are under renovation and may be used for future residents or professional services. Something that I thought was neat is that the VA here has a veteran's homeless program. I recommend this as a half day trip.
I didn't mention the weather earlier, probably should have. The area had rainy weather earlier in the week, then cleared up. On the way up the weather was beginning to get cloudy again. At the museum it began to snow so we decided to come back home a different way, good thing too, our original route began receiving snow. We made it home safely for this trip. See ya later.