Lost Dutchman State Park, Apache Junction, Arizona
A prudent man sees danger and takes refuge, but the simple keep going and suffer for it. ~ Proverbs 22:3
Ha! Today’s verse made us laugh! So appropriate, as we’re both suffering a bit today. 😊
Blaine’s not as bad as I am, although he may just be hiding it from me. As for me, I’m dealing with (from the top down), shoulders, side/rib, gluts, thighs. All places that normally never bother me. Each pain a testament to the difficulty we faced yesterday. Ugh!
But we (I) can’t just lie around moaning all day. We have things to do.
After morning devotions, the first thing on Blaine’s agenda was to find us a place to live, instead of Grand Canyon National Park. The first thing on my agenda was to call GCNP and find out what the deal is, because when I checked on their website, I discovered that only the Lodge and the campground where we had reservations closed. The other tent sites and the entire Park remain open. That makes absolutely no sense. The lodges, I get with all the coronavirus stuff going on, but the rest? Why close a campground to self-contained people who don’t need anything to stay there, but leave a campground full of people who need all their facilities open? And why cancel our reservation at the end of April, while the Park itself remains open to thousands and thousands of additional visitors?
Anyway, I called searching for an explanation. Turns out the lodge and our campground are run by an outside company. Turns out, they had no good explanation for me. Not the girl who first answered, nor her supervisor. When I explained my question once again to the supervisor, and asked her if she could understand my viewpoint (that we’re full-time and self-contained and other things remain open), she adamantly said, “No I don’t! This is a deadly virus pandemic we’re dealing with and we’re concerned for the safety of our customers and our staff! I don’t understand why you’re not!” She sounded like she was in her twenties, so she hasn’t yet had time to learn proper public relations techniques. 😊 But hey. We’re getting a full refund, so all’s well! (my sarcastic self said)
Anyway, we had prayed about our situation this morning and Blaine set to finding a new place in the approximate area, and low and behold, he immediately came upon a State Park campground with one site available for the time we need! And it’s big enough for us! Granted, it’s quite a ways from the National Park, but at least it’s an available spot to live in. And Arizona is committed to keeping their State Parks open, so that’s a good thing. God is sooooo good to us!
Tonight, we’re taking dessert to Jen’s house (my friend Michelle’s sister’s family), so after the living accommodations were secured, there was a cake to bake. What a mess that became! It’s a fantastic recipe you can find on the back of the Hershey’s Special Dark cocoa can, and I’ve made it several times before. It’s a wonderfully moist, rich, heavy, made-from-scratch, absolutely delicious confection! But for some reason, even though I did everything correctly, it decided to stick to the bottoms of my cake pans – – in a bad way. What solution did I come up with? Glue it all together with the scrumptious icing! And then use a butter knife dipped in hot water to smooth it all out – – just like I learned in a cake decorating class I took with my grandma many, many moons ago! Looked edible and tasted heavenly!
While the baking was going on, we received pictures and a link to 95.5 The Fish radio station from our oldest, Chris. It seems he and his boys went on a night hike the other evening. They had a blast! And the link was to check out Chris’ now famous picture. They asked listeners for pictures of what they’re doing job-wise to help out during the COVID-19 shut down, and Chris and his co-worker sent one in. Then Chris got a call from the station to talk about what they’re doing, and next thing you know, his picture’s part of a remix video by the Christian group, King and Country. You can find it on The Fish’s website if you want to see and hear it – “God Only Knows”. Good song, but it’s kinda hard to find. Go to their home page, then scroll until you find the “Stream Church” ad and open it. Then along the side of that open window, you’ll see a scroll bar. Move it down until you see the “God Only Knows” remix COVID19 video, and press play.
Talk about social distancing! : )
They’re both commercial electricians tasked with aiding in adding more poles for Verizon.
Good job guys!!
So now that our work is done, it was time to get out.
Since our bodies were aching, we took a scenic drive out Historic 88 as far as they would allow us. This road used to be an Indian path, and then a stagecoach trail between Mesa, Arizona and the Roosevelt Dam; a distance of 38 ½ miles. It’s also known as the Apache Trail.
And it goes through this very little touristy area called, Tortilla Flat. It looks like an old-time western storefront. And we didn’t really get it, but apparently, people buy “the town”. One of the pictures from inside the teeny, tiny, itty, bitty museum, shows a list of all the people who’ve owned Tortilla Flat.
Enjoy!
We keep looking, but we’ve not ever seen one. : )
In addition to the museum? We found The Lost Dutchman’s Mine! Yippee!! We’re rich!! Hahaha! (You would’ve had to read the post from a few days ago to get that touch of humor.)
We drove through the water, and on down the road.
Unfortunately, we couldn’t get too far because of the road closure. We found out later, it was due to a major rock slide. That just happened in the wee hours of today!! Upon further research, I found out that the road’s been closed since September anyway, due to a fire that happened in June, followed by an historic flood in September that washed out part of the road. And now we know why that huge, yellow “Save The Apache Trail” sign was up along the road as we were driving into Apache Junction on our first day!
We saw enough on this drive to know that we want to return on a sunny day! My oh MY!!
There were a couple of “off-road” places we could explore, so we did that too.
We returned back home in time to head out to Josh and Jen’s place for dinner (Salmon, scalloped potatoes and roasted veggies! Yum!), dessert and learning a new game called “Catan”. It has quite a few rules, but once you start playing, it’s pretty easy. It’s a strategic game, and the kids were excellent at it! Jackson (8) and Nathan (6 – on my lap because he was helping me 😊) really had a great grasp on it, even as young as they are. Little Austin (18 months) was in bed and slept through our, at times, energetic game playing.
According to those who know, our game ended up lasting about twice as long as normal – two hours instead of one – because people just weren’t able to get the points they needed to win. 😊
We had a great time and were grateful for their hospitality and their take-home oranges! They have an orange and a lemon tree growing right in their backyard! The lemons were too high for Nathan to climb up and pick for us. 😊 But the oranges are wonderful!
