Last Thursday's Road Trip

To complete our visitor's tour, we took them on the Florence to Kelvin Highway (more dirt than pavement) to view the open pit cooper mine, to Superior and then back to CV...after visiting St. Anthony's Greek Monastery and lunch at Mount Athos, the Greek restaurant. Thursday was a FULL day topped with dinner at Old Chicago.

I thought the Florence to Kelvin road would be interesting for several reasons. This was the first one.

the boulders appear in a small desert area

they are HUGE boulders

unusual geologic feature

This was the second reason for the back road, short cut.

crested saguaro along the road

these mutant cacti are rare

Then it was onto the Ray Mine, an open pit copper mine. We have not been there for a couple of years and were very disappointed to find the viewing area was not open. In fact what was the viewing area is now a mountain of trailings. We were able to stop along the highway and get a glimpse of the mine. It wasn't very active at 4:00 on a Thursday afternoon, but then we saw only a very small area of the mine. A local shared the mine had recently laid off over 100 miners over a dispute. He did not share what the dispute was. There is more than 10 miles of mine trailings along the highway from Kelvin, north towards Superior.

These photos are from our visit to the mine in March 2010.

a nice comparison in size: school bus and ore trucks

history of the Mexican owned mine

comparison of a pick-up and ore hauling truck

This IS what we saw last Thursday when we stopped.

this was the viewing area back in 2010

now a mountain of trailings

We continued north to Superior, driving through main street. Once again I was totally surprised when I saw the MacPherson's Hotel Magma.

serious renovation

lovely new windows

Surprised because this is what the hotel looked like in February 2014 when I spent a day in Superior visiting historic homes & buildings.

open roof

no windows

a new mine is opening in a couple of years

maybe that is the reason for the hotel reno????

building to the east

it also has a roof and new windows AND

is connected to the hotel

this is part of the connecting hallway between the two buildings

it is now enclosed with windows

evidence of progress

restoration instead of demolition

February 2014

We drove east of Superior to view the old highway and some of the prettiest mountains in this area.

interesting hoodoos

I do not know the name of the mountain range 

We also saw some awesome spring wildflowers on Wednesday & Thursday, but I did not stop to take any photos. 

We enjoyed your visit and hope you will come back next year Bill & Donna! There is more to see.