Today was another moving day, this time from Ajo to Phoenix. Rich woke up feeling a great deal of improvement with the scorpion sting, which was a relief. We enjoyed our last breakfast at the Guest House Inn served by Mike. Today’s treat was cornmeal waffles with a blueberry sauce and scoop of vanilla ice cream, accompanied by a slice of ham and strawberries. We had a fellow guest this time too, a guy who was working near the border at Lukeville. He seemed friendly enough, although he spent most of the meal working his phone so we didn’t have much of a chance to converse with him.
We were quick to pack up so we’d have some more time to chat with Mike before heading out. I had a few other activities in mind before leaving town, too. Last night I read online about the Ajo Mine Lookout and visitors center. Staffed by volunteers it was unclear when it would actually be open, but the thought of looking down into the mining pit (and buying some of the homemade saguaro jelly I’d read about) were enticing enough that we had to take a drive by. For a visitors center it was surprisingly hard to find. It is exactly where Google maps says, actually, but the building is hard to spot from the road and it’s in an empty lot past some very large No Trespassing signs. Don’t let that deter you, it is the right spot. But unfortunately no one was there today, and when the center is closed you can’t even access the overlook. Bummer, but we can try again next time we’re in the area. While we were here we took a photo of the Greenway memorial cross on top of A (Camelback) Mountain. It’s an NGS landmark station that was originally placed as a memorial to John Campbell Greenway, developer of the New Cornelia Mine and the Ajo townsite. It was pretty cool that the driveway we chose to turn around in was the driveway for the “Greenway House” and we actually took our photos of the cross from here!
We wanted to check out a tri-station called FLITE at what is now the Cabeza Prieta wildlife refuge. This was a very interesting mark with a detailed history, particularly concerning the reference marks! We found the two reference marks that still exist easily because they’re in the sidewalk adjacent to the parking lot. We couldn’t find the station at first, even though it was obvious where it should have been from the coordinates and the reference marks. We eventually resorted to checking Geocaching.com. We could see that in the nine years since the station was last found the mark had been covered over with soil and gravel, but at least we had some evidence of where it was, and that was consistent with both the coordinates and the reference marks. So Rich dug and scraped at the dry soil until we found it!
After finishing our recovery of all three marks, we took a walk through the visitors center. Impressive! We watched long and detailed video about the preserve, its history and ongoing conservation efforts. Peeking around the back of the center I saw the beginning of a short nature trail, which we had to check out. By now the sun was burning hot but the trail was worthwhile regardless of the conditions. We saw an ocotillo with leaves (it must be getting extra water from somewhere, because all of the other ocotillos we saw at this time of year had long lost their leaves), and a pond that was supposed to feature pupfish, but we couldn’t find any.
We didn’t have anything else in mind to do along the way, so we headed straight up to Phoenix. Route 85 is an easy drive and took us right through Gila Bend. The most interesting thing we saw there was the Space Age Lodge, a Best Western with a spaceship on the roof. Seriously! The heat had us drinking lots of water and, for our sugar, we finished up the prickly pear licorice.
The traffic on I-10 was completely insane. Rich guided us smoothly through it, as always, unflustered. We arrived at our downtown motel without a problem, unpacked and got settled. As soon as we stepped out onto the sidewalk to head downtown for the trolley, Rich said “Hey, this looks so familiar. I swear this is right by where we stayed last time!” The motel next door was a Rodeway Inn, and we’ve never stayed in a Rodeway Inn. But as soon as we walked by their parking lot, we both recognized it. It had simply changed names from the Budget Lodge to the Rodeway Inn. Never fear - it’s still Indian-owned, and it still smells like curry!
It was already 2pm and very hot so we decided to take it easy for the rest of the afternoon. We took the light rail to one of our favourite places from our last visit, the Four Peaks Brewery in Tempe. It’s so cool to ride the rails and it’s only about a 30 minute ride, plus a short walk. The brewery was gorgeous and so relaxing. We had a seat outside, on a covered patio, relatively quiet, well shaded and with a light breeze. Perfectly comfortable.
We had to start with beers! I had a Peach Ale and Rich had the Sunbru. Then I got the southwest burger with green chile (of course) and it came with an excellent pasta salad with basil pesto, grape tomatoes and mozzarella pearls. Rich had the carne adovada with rice and black beans. The food and beer were great, but what I’ll remember most is how relaxing the environment was. Outside, we were isolated from any shenanigans taking place at the bar and were simply enjoying a great meal together on a porch on a hot afternoon. We were feeling so good that we both got dessert too, which is extremely unusual. Rich had a vanilla milkshake and I tried the sticky hoppy pudding minus the ice cream. It was a rich sticky date cake served in a hot cast-iron skillet with a hoppy caramel sauce poured over it. It was exactly as delicious as it sounds, but it was enormous and even with the two of us picking at it, we still had half left over to bring back to the room.