Ok, so at this point I have a truck that starts and runs. So Friday morning I head down to give the state a bunch of money and time so I am allowed to continue doing what I do for a living. I get done there and head home and load the truck up for an adventure. The adventure ended up becoming slightly abbreviated as my wife's half-day turned into more like a 3/4 day or even a 7/8 day. So we got a bit of a late start and even at that, I forgot a couple things. Oh well.
So the adventure as it was ended up being rather sedate, but a bunch of fun just the same. We left out of here and headed up toward Crown King. It is an old mining town/ghost town in the Bradshaw mountains. There are several ways to get there, but we took the easiest way by going in through the front door. This is not much of a wheeling adventure as it is graded and a passenger car can navigate it without much trouble at all. But hey, it is twenty six miles of dirt road and dirt is better than pavement so I'll take it.
Along the way in, we pass through the thriving metropolis of Cleator. It is about half way in and it has a bar. I bet this little bar can challenge some of the larger bars in Phoenix for revenue.
So, once passed Cleator, you are greeted by views like this:
So we got into Crown King at about 1600 and figured we would eat there so we didn't have to deal with cooking in case we had trouble locating a suitable spot to camp. We stopped at the Crown King Saloon to eat. The Saloon was brought piece by piece over the mountain from Oro Belle (another ghost town site) in 1901. It is a very neat old building. So anyways, we head out from there and head over to the Senator Highway. This is a dirt road that is very nice in some areas and rough in others, but generally a decent road. We head north on it looking for a place to camp. Several of the trails leading off of the road are closed to motorized travel. Swell. We pass many, many spots that are right off of the road where people literally get their wheels off the road and call it a camp site. Well I like a bit more privacy and less traffic through my campsite so we keep rolling and find a narrow little trail off the side. I turn down it and it goes in a ways and levels off. Off the side of the landing is a smaller trail that looks about the right size for a Rhino. I walk down a little bit and there are three trees on either side of the trail that are very close together. I figure I can get the compact Suburban through it. "What's the worst that can happen" I say as I point the truck downhill at the narrow spot. We get through with no scratches dings or dents and are rewarded with a great little spot. It looks like an adit pile, but I could find no evidence anywhere of an adit or shaft.
From up the hill:
A little closer:
It ended up being a great place with no noise, dust, or mayhem. I started setting up the truck for the evening and we got a nice sunset:
One of the things I got at Cabela's was a self inflating air matress. The last time we camped in the truck both my wife and I woke up with sore hips from the board we were sleeping on. Now mind you, I had a high density floor padding on the bottom, an eggcrate foam on top of that, two thick sleeping bags on top of that and we slept on top of all of that and ended up sore. Well, this little air mattress made the difference. It worked great!! I don't have a pic of it, but I did take a pic of the master bedroom:
I also took one of my boy's bedroom complete with the grand staircase:
We crashed out and got up in the morning and packed up to head toward Prescott. My wife and boy were wandering around and found a little furry friend:
When we were ready to head out, I took a pic of the view. Something about getting in the truck to go and the hubs are still locked, the transfer case is still in low range and this is the view (so much better than the driveway):
It was a good night and the air matress was worth the high price of admission. The only issue that we had was it got pretty warm in the truck when we were going to sleep. It did this the last time also but the ambient air temp was much higher then. I wrongly figured that the lower ambient air temp would take care of that issue. I started out in long pants and long sleeves and ended up in shorts and short sleeves. I need to figure out a ventilation setup with screens because we encountered alot of mosquitos up there.
So we head toward Prescott and see some beautiful scenery along the way:
I have a few more to add but I still have to load them.