Jan. 19, 2009 dorothy and I decided we would go sight seeing, I wanted to go up to Salt River Canyon and then work our way back over the Apache Trail and down through Toretta Flats back to Gold Canyon where we are staying. We got up through Globe and headed out 60, Salt River Canyon is a min. version of the Grand Canyon. We got to the bridge that crosses it and stopped to buy some jewely from the local indians, I asked this Indian if there was any off road trails we could take and he said yea right across the bridge a trail leads to the left. We decided to try it, was very pretty there as we started down this old dirt road. ( our GPS called it a primitive road, it was...). It was 1 lane wide at the most and followed the Salt River, we would go up high and wind around the mountians, the cliffs would be straight upand the side of the road would be straight down ( way down ). We wound around for about 6 or 7 miles and came to a wash that was leading off the mountian, of course there was water in the wash, I asked Dorothy if she though we should go through it and she said it was up to me. (wrong answer) So as we drove into the water the tires droped down in the loose gravel, the water was about 12in deep and the gravel at least that deep, we got through. The rocks falling off of the cliffs from above was certainly a thing to worry about, you had to drive around then and a couple of times Dorothy wanted to get out and try and move some so we could get by, I told her we had room even though there was a cliff you could look out and see straight down, after around another 8 miles we turned on our GPS garmin and it said we were 17 miles into a primitive road and it showed that it came out the other side on rt 88 wrer we wanted to get to. We came to another canyon wash, the bank was really deep sand but it looked like solid rock bottom through the water, the water was up to and over our running boards, we started up the mountain again and came to a T in the road with signs pointing various places ( canyon creek, medicine ranch, and others with signs saying 10 mi 17 mi ect ) at this time we were lost, sort of, we didn;t know whether to go on or go back, we had no maps other then GPS and it didn't tell us about the washes. We decoded to head for Canyon Creek 8 more miles deeper in, was the direction to get to rt 88. Have you ever had your brakes hot and smelly only going 5 mph, we did, going back down the mountain to Canyon Creek, we got there and this wash was at least Hummer deep, not Suburan deep. It was really hard to turn around at the bottom of the mountain, all deep sand and big rocks, we made it. Our cell phone of course wouldn't work until we got back on top of the mountain so that is were we headed. At this time we had spent around 3 hrs. on this trail and it was gettig late. it get dark around 5pm and black dark at 5:30 it was 4:15. We back to the T ine road and I had some phone service 1 dot. I called the highway patrol to asked if we could get out going toward medicine ranch, he said he didn't know anything about primitive roads that I would have to call the sheriff's dept. I tried the number and got a fax, so we decided we should go back and try to get through the washes that we shouldn't have crossed in the first place. w ehad to go faster to get out before dark, there was new rocks on the road that weren't there the first time to dodge. we made it threw the 1st wash and headed for the next, at this time poor Dorothy had all the excitement ( as she said Scared Shitless ) as she could handle. We got to the next wash and made it through with only some bend parts on the trailer hitich. All in all we had a great time although Dorothy might not agree. I will try and add some pics.

see ya soon Wayne & Dorothy

Az trip

Hi Everyone
Well we finally got going around 9:30 am Fri. morn our goal was to reach Memphis by evening and we made it. We ended up staying at the Cracker Barrel Restaurant, we got an early start because we wanted to be out of their lot before it got busy with the morning rush. We wanted to get to El Paso on the 2nd day, but Texas is certainly as advertised BIG. We where just about to get to Texas when we had a right front tire blow out while I was running 75mph on cruise control. Very exciting, Dorothy was scared but we kept it under control. Road service and $1200.. for two new front tires and we reach the middle of Texas ( Dallas, Fort Worth ) we stayed at a wal-mart for the night. It had to be bad Carma because the tire blew out in Hope Ar. Bill Clinton's home town. We stayed the next night in El Paso, that is 1 big spread out city. We got started early and had around 500 miles to go, we got into Canyon Vista RV Resort around 4:00pm and that is where we will be for 1 month, nice place with a great view of the Superstition Mountains. I will try to put on some pictures. The trains out here have 6 engines in front and 2 in the back and are 2 - 3 miles long. See ya all soon. Wayne & Dorothy