Monday, February 24, 2014

Lovely drive, mining towns and horses

Today started as a type of day that you just wanted to jump in the car and go exploring so that is what we did. Fifteen miles out of Florence to highway 60 and a turn right toward Globe and off we went. The area turned from desert to beautiful valleys between the Apache and Pinal mountains. This entire area was big in cooper and gold mining and the open pit Pinto Valley copper mine is still operating. We passed through small mining towns like Superior that is struggling to reconstruct their historic part of town to try and attract tourism.  Further down the road we passed through another mining town of Miami. A little further and we were in the town of Claypool and finally Globe where we had lunch and turned around to head back to Florence.


Back in Florence we had to make a stop at the post office to pick up any mail we may have as well as to change our address as we will be leaving here on Saturday and moving into Mesa. After the post office stop and before heading back to the campground we stopped at The Arizona Wild Horse and Burro Adoption holding area. The animals are trained by inmates from the local prison and are available for adoption in March.   

 Downtown Superior Arizona
 A Lot of closed store fronts
Nice Palm trees in town
 Pretty bushes as well
 The once famous Magma Hotel is getting a makeover


Total makeover to try and bring tourism to the otherwise dying town 
The building as seen below needs SOME work

 She is looking at a nice patio area at the La Mina Bar and Cantina


 Auctions every week
                                                                         Beautiful bloom
                                                                   Bob Jones Museum

Further on down the road we found this pretty church in Miami Arizona

                      Back to Florence and a look at the Wild Horse and Burro Adoption yard