A Trip to Madera Canyon…fabulous!

   We woke up this morning (early) to the sounds of diesel trucks starting around us…There are some road construction workers living in campers here and they must have had an early “breakfast” meeting somewhere. The sun was peeking over the mountains, but I stayed tightly tucked under my covers and turned on the TV about 6:15AM..We caught up on the news and decided to get some coffee. The temp was 38 degrees, but it is suppose to warm up to 68.

  I needed to find something to do, so I fixed pancakes, eggs and sausage. Den likes to piles his eggs on top of his pancake…the original Dennie’s Grand Slam..We finally got brave and opened up the shades….It IS a beautiful morning..After I prepped our dinner for tonight, we took our first power walk around the park.  We walked toward the back, where the mountain view is, and we ran into a couple who were opening up a barbed wire gate and going out into the desert…I see a plan forming for tomorrow’s walk, but it will require a GPS…Apparently that is NOT private property…Either that is the case, or we will see the Sheriff’s car pulled up by this couple’s camper later..

About 10:30AM, we decided to take a ride up the road to Madera Canyon. It was turning into a fabulous day, so I grabbed the camera and we took off.  The off ramp that we needed was, of course, closed…regroup!!  We had not taken our Atlas nor our GPS, so we relied on our dead reckoning to find our way, and for a change we did find the road we needed. It wound out of town and headed toward the mountains…

We were gradually climbing up the mountain…and the views back over our shoulder were beautiful…

We kept climbing, and soon found there were quite a few cottages for rental and a bed and breakfast or two.  We were in the Coronado National Forest and the further up we climbed, the greener it got.  I felt like I had left the desert of Arizona and was somehow transported into Montana…

There was a pretty little mountain stream that ran crystal clear along the road.  This was in total opposition of the few cactus that were still appearing on the side of the road almost next to it…

We were at an altitude of 4685 ft, and kept climbing.  The snow in the mountains above us kept getting closer and closer..There were places to pull off and take photos…and you know me, I took a gazillion…

 

We got to the top, where there was a bathroom and rest area with picnic tables.  There were about 20 bicyclists that we ran into on the way up..and let me tell you, they were in their lowest gears and almost standing still.  My old lady bike is not made for this abuse,…nor is this “old lady”…  We did our circle around and took more photos before we stared back down…

WHAT VIEWS WE HAD!!!

  As we were heading down the mountain canyon road (in low , low gear, I might add), I spotted something in the road and shouted for Den to stop, as I realized we had a wild turkey crossing the road ahead of us..In fact , it turned out to be a herd of wild turkeys crossing the road…

….and they were not the least bit in any hurry to get out of the way.  After I had taken my photos , (and they had ordered their 8X10 glossys)…we warned them about crossing without looking both ways and went on our way….As we slowly came down from the canyon, the mountains framing Tucson were in the distance..

…We got back into town and managed to get lost trying to find our way to the interstate, but we did get to flounder around in a fabulous subdivision where the roadside and median were filled with gorgeous flower beds.  We wandered around until we finally found our way out and got on I-19…Dennis still wanted to check out the Pima Mine and see about a tour…We went up a few exits and headed West on Duval Mine Rd..which was NOT the way to go…We got further out in the middle of nowhere and we were circling the mine..Believe it or not, there were some steer grazing on the sides of the mine wall..They must have been part mountain goat. 

    I will not bore you with the details, but we ended up at the mine entrance which said “NO TRESPASSING”, and we did a U-turn heading back the way we came..I saw a road called Mission Rd.,and was pretty sure it was going to take us to San Xavier del Bac Mission, so I talked him into following it…for 28-30 miles..I will post the pictures tomorrow, after I get Den’s foot out of my “whatever” for taking him on a loooooog drive .This was a drive that would have only taken 5 minutes on the interstate…

.It is shower time, happy hour, and relax time here at the ‘ol HitchHiker….and I have gone on WAY too long already..You can get out of the truck and come on in….We will revisit the saga of the Mission tomorrow…. Once we finally got there, we enjoyed it….I got some pretty nice pics that I will post tomorrow…As for now, take a seat in the camper..Can I get anyone a cocktail???