This last run kind of wet the whistle for some more trail time, so I decided some camping would be a good thing to do for the next run. I found that there was a car show south of Chino Valley on 28 May, so I figured that was a good excuse to get out of town. We were going to camp somewhere but one of my wife's co-workers just bought a cabin out west of Prescott and offered to let us stay in their pop-up trailer there. Well that sounds easier than truck camping, so that's what we did.
We lit out for Prescott at a decent hour of the morning. It is probably pretty evident by now that even if I am going somewhere easily accessible on the highway, I usually find some less traveled way to get there. This trip is no exception. We swung off of 69 and ran Poland Road.
I like Poland Road alot because you are in pine trees almost immediately. Instant altitude.
One cool feature of Poland Road is there are two train tunnels on it. One is full of water but the other is still accessible. This was used when the roadbed we are traveling on was a rail road and the tunnels were used to alleviate problems associated with switchbacks or just cut distance off by going through instead of around or over the mountains. If you do not know where to look, it is almost impossible to find--it is still difficult even when knowing where to look. This is what the entrance looks like:
The tunnel is not too long and the other end of it has been almost completely back-filled. A person can still climb up and out of it, but it is not a wide open end like the entrance is. It is cool, the roof of the tunnel is still black from the soot of the steam locomotives rolling through it. This is looking back at the entrance from inside the tunnel:
Gratuitous truck shot from the "textured" side (all dents were provided by the original owner):
The road heads up and out from there through five points and on towards Senator Highway. This was taken somewhere after five points: This pic doesn't seem too special, but it is one of my favorite pics from my Suburban travels.
Heading past an old mine up on the left here:
Down the road a bit, down the side of the mountain, there was a big mining operation on the side of the mountain. There isn't much left of it, but there is still a building skeleton here:
I think it was a warehouse of some sort. Not much left on the site besides that.
I have not tried this before, but my wife stuck the camera out of the window and tried to take some video of what we were seeing. It didn't turn out so well, it is 90* off and I can't figure out how to turn it and it is pretty shaky because there is not stabilization in the digi cam, but I thought it was kind of cool because it caught some exhaust music in the process, so I thought I'd post it to show what this thing sounds like in the wilderness.
Click on the pic:
