Friday in Yuma

Last weekend was the second weekend in February which meant it was South West Area Geocachers event in Yuma. Five of us climbed in the Edge and headed west to Yuma.

first stop: Naked Date Farm at Wellton

We discovered this place in 2016 when we geocached in that area. It is on our Must Do/Stop list every trip to Yuma. There have been some additions and changes over the years.

grabbed our date shakes and those 3 found a geocache

then downtown Yuma for some geocaching

before the SWAG event on Friday night

Flash mob event

geocachers carried a red solo cup, danced and sang to

Red Solo Cup

geocacher Tom from MN

then some more geocaching

in historic downtown Yuma

End of SWAG Day 1 in Yuma

Thanks to Sherry Hockersmith for sharing photos

some are mine; some are hers

Click on any photo to enlarge it

A 'New to Us' Restaurant

A nephew and his family were in town the end of last month. They spent a couple of cold days at the Grand Canyon and other tourist sights in the Flagstaff area but made time for us the evening before they flew back to a colder North Dakota. We told them to choose the location for dinner and we would meet them.

As we walked up the incline to the entrance, there was a familiar (?) smell. Maybe not as familiar as it was recognizable.

the culprit

look at the spread of those horns!

a bison for the NDSU fans

rattlesnake bites on the right

prickly pear cactus fries on the left

NOT a rattlesnake carcass in the center!

rattlesnake was chewy, but tasty

cactus fries were good

steak with carrots & corn

no potato

the child's portion of Mac 'n Cheese

balloon artist for entertainment

her Disney princess

he couldn't do a bison, so he made a cow

cotton candy for dessert

5 of the 6 used the slide

a fun evening

A Little Social Life

Just so you aren't thinking the only adventures we have revolve around geocaching, this post to to show the social life we enjoy.

A spur of the moment text messages between 4 parties brought together neighbors from the hood in Watertown. Keep in mind, two of those parties live in SD full time, but travel to AZ to see friends/relatives and golf. The other two parties are snow birds. We just all happened to have a free Sunday afternoon.

We enjoyed great conversation, adult beverages and some very good food. It is ALWAYS fun to gather with this group. We used to do it almost every Sunday after church. Seeing you all last month was great. Thanks for the fun afternoon.

Also that week, I enjoyed being with fellow Red Hatters. It was fun to pull out the long purple dress, the beads and adornments and dress for a luncheon.

not the usual crowd size at one of the other 'in-town' Cal-Am resorts

wearing my vintage red hat found in the basement at

my grandparent's house

a fun couple of hours

Copper Town Tour and then Some

Last Saturday started with a stop at one of Hubby's favorite breakfast stops. We can't drive through Superior in the morning without eating at...

pancakes, of course

then onto Globe. This part of the day's adventure had three purposes: to see geocaching friends, Jon and Sherry; to add another county to Terry's AZ geo stats; and to do an Adventure Lab cache recently published giving all of us a little more experience with the newest geocache type from HQ. 

Terry & Jane's first cache in Gila County

they found it rather quickly

without Hubby's help

Then it was off to Claypool for the first stop on the Copper Town Tour and learning about copper mining and its importance to this area and Arizona.

looking for the correct answer to the first question,

making it much harder than it was

an average sized dump truck in a mine scoop

the smelter, one of two in AZ today

at the rod plant where pure copper sheets

are melted and cast into coils of copper wire

We completed the other two stops on the Adventure Lab Copper Town Tour and were awarded with

completed!

Sherry and Jon led us to a historic stop with a geocache in downtown Globe.

a replacement tree, but the story and location are historic

love learning things like this

(click on this and any photo to make it larger)

our time in Globe ended with a FTF

First To Find on a Lifeisguud geocache

A fun and successful morning before driving back to Superior and the Home Tour mentioned in the previous two blog posts. Three-fold mission accomplished and then some!

The Rest of the Superior Home Show

This is the second and last part of the Superior Home Show. Although not homes, these three historic buildings along Main Street are very important to the history and restoration of the mining town.

Once again we stopped at the Magma Hotel because Jane & Terry had not seen it. We did get to see two different guest rooms on the first floor of the hotel. Rooms rent for $180 a night for a single and $200+ for a double. 

(photo from last year)

(photo from last year)

the dining room was open for breakfast and lunch

(last year's photo was better)

2019 Magma Hotel Superior 

modern bathroom with clawfoot tub and 

shower

bathrooms decorated in black & white

all have clawfoot tubs & showers

one of the two rooms we saw

queen beds in every room

the renovated hotel opened for business in March 2019

(we saw it in January 2019)

second Superior city jail

(first jail was built in 1903 at another location)

This jail was built in 1920 as the Pinal County Jail. The adobe addition housing judges offices has crumbled with time. According to local legend, Mexican Revolutionary General Pancho Villa was protected for a night in the jail in 1920 and supposedly hid out in a few homes along Sonora Street. This was also the courthouse until a new one was built in 1945.

The jail building was empty for a number of years after prisoners were moved to Florence, the Pinal County seat. In 1960 the building became a laundromat and in 2012 it was bought by the current owner of the Hotel Magma and returned to its former  purpose, a jail...

complete with permanent residents

the Barmacy was on the tour last year, 

but not yet open for business

it was this year

2019 Barmacy Superior Tour

our adult refreshments

(pear Ultra was delicious!)

one of the infamous Superior residents 

Mattie Earp & Historic Pinal Cemetery