Why Thatcher?
October 27, 2019

Who in their right mind would go to Thatcher, Arizona, to celebrate their 40th wedding anniversary?  Me and Chris - that's who.  Why Thatcher?  Well, why not Thatcher, that's what I say.  Granted, it's not a two-week Hawaiian vacation, but this is what we get and I am content, grateful even.

It was not easy to carve out any time away from our crowded schedule, but by changing two appointments and bailing on one other commitment, we get a whopping three and one-half days away.

We love this part of the state and even have family ties here.  I had thought we might lodge in nearby Safford, but when a very reasonable and cute b&b in Thatcher popped up, it seemed like the thing to do.

On Sunday, Chris played for two services at Unity and then we were off on our long drive, ending up in a lovely old farmhouse in the midst of cotton fields.  Our hostess said this house and the one across the drive might have been razed due to their dilapidated condition when she and her husband acquired them, but she was inspired to refurbish our cozy abode, and what a splendid job she has done!

As we headed southward from Prescott, we kept in mind that we had not leisure time for our usual dawdle; therefore we dawdled a good bit less than is our wont to dawdle.

Our conversation was amply salted with dismay at what has become of our beautiful state, mostly as we traversed the crazily huge Phoenix metropolitan area.  It does go on and on and on and on and on.  Towns that once were far separated from each other now share the same space.  Are we in Anthem, Phoenix, Scottsdale, Apache Junction or some other named place?  One doesn't usually know and in my case, one doesn't care.

By the time we approached the alluring Superstition Mountains, I began to feel the tension fall away.  Coming into the wild jagged winding mountain canyons past there, I felt such awe at the landscape; would that I could spend several lifetimes exploring there.

We did make a stop to photograph Picketpost Mountain (below), which rises above the Boyce Thompson Arboretum.  I wrote about William Boyce Thompson (the person, not the arboretum) previously when I was discovering that his nephew was Bill Thompson, the creator of the iconic Wallace & Ladmo television show, and that his brother, J.E. Thompson, developed the amazing multi-vegetated property adjacent to my grandmother's home in Phoenix.  Okay, there's another tangent. . .

Limited time required that stops were few and far between and brief.  I was fascinated to see a remnant of old Highway 60, but was unable to get a photo of it.  Even that short glimpse propelled me into reminiscing about the olden days traveling with my parents around Arizona.  It was entirely a terrifying experience to traverse the very narrow precipitous byways of past years as they painstakingly took us up and down and around Arizona's imposing mountainous terrain.  As children, our usual occupation on those journeys was to be the first to spy vehicles far below where they had plunged from the road and tumbled end over end down the rocky mountainside.  In those days, the wrecks remained right where they landed, thus the rusting hulks would still be visible for years afterward, eliciting horror as we imagined the fate of the occupants.  Those roads were not for the faint-hearted.

Back to the current trip: we called a halt on the far side of the Queen Creek tunnel to look around and snap some shots.  We were cautious at the edge of the cliff; the wind was blowing so wildly that we were worried about being blown over the side.  Even the saguaros were swaying back and forth under the onslaught.

The Queen Creek canyon sides are as rough and steep as any I've ever seen.  Evidently, it is a popular climbing site; in the photo below, there is actually a climber low on one of those cliff faces with a belayer above her.  Based on our observations, she was a rank beginner: despite slowly repositioning her hands and feet repeatedly, she never moved from her spot.

 The 1952 tunnel eliminated one of the life-threatening highway routes.

Our journey took us through extensive copper mining territory and the towns of Superior, Miami, Claypool and Globe with glimpses of the gigantic open pit operations.  Many years ago, my older brother worked in one of those mines and was severely injured when a bulldozer rolled onto his foot, causing lifelong issues. 

One other site of interest at which we halted was a large well-used roadside shrine, evidently of a fairly recent vintage.