A Friday Jeep Ride.

Getting to the Trail

Tom called us and asked if we were up to a ride on Friday.
Of course we said yes.

We met at the Arco Station on the east side of town. Just three jeeps today. Lillie and Tom, Becky and Dennis and Patti and I.

Around 9:00 we headed east on I-10.

26 Miles east of Q we passed the ZIP station. You can tell that the wind is pretty strong by the huge Flag at the station.

31 miles east of Q we took the Hovatter Road exit and headed north. Hovatter Rd. is a wide graded dirt road that eventually becomes Harquahala Road.

Dead Cow Trail.

We followed this road to where the Hope to Hovatter Road veers to the left. We followed this road going northwest to a turn off on a smaller trail. At the turnoff we saw this dead cow without it’s head

We drove up the trail about a hundred yards and stopped to air down the tires on the jeeps.

While we were airing down a pickup drove to where the dead cow was, loaded it into the bed of the truck and took off.
We figured that it must have been their Cow.
We decided to call this Dead Cow Trail.

Heading for the Mountains.

After airing down we headed out this trail toward the mountains in the distance.

The trail starts out pretty smooth but once we get into the mountains the trail becomes more interesting.

The trail drops into narrow valley's and then climbs over ridges.

From the ridges we get some nice views like this one.

And this.

A Masked Rock.

The trail drops down from this ridge and into a wash.

Just before the wash we spot this masked rock.

A Memorial.

After climbing out of the wash we took a side trail and came to this dead end.

Up the hill a little ways we saw this memorial.

You find memorial’s like this throughout the desert, usually some where with a view like this one.

We left this spot and continued our journey.

A little farther down then trail Patti spotted this interesting Saguaro.

A Cold Lunch.

After a while we found what we thought was a sheltered place to have lunch.
When we first stopped there was no wind but after we got set up the wind shifted and was blowing right up the wash where we were sitting.

It got pretty cold so we didn’t stay here very long. Once we had eaten our sandwiches we packed up and left.

From this side of the mountains we could see some of the small villages along Highway 60.

A Great View.

We continued following the trail up and down and around and around. What I call the merry go round.
Eventually we came to another view spot.

This is the best view of the day. This is looking south.

Sleeping Dog Rock.

Toward the end of the trail we saw this plie of rocks. If you stretch your imagination you can see what looks like a dog with floppy ears, sleeping on top of the rocks. You can see its face one eye and one floppy ear at the left.

After the sleeping dog rock we went about another mile and came to the end of the trail at highway 60.
We aired up the tires and headed west on 60.

Dos Amigos.

Just west of Vicksburg we stopped at the Dos Amigo’s Mexican Restaurant.
None of us had ever stopped here and we wanted to see what it was like. It turned out to be much more impressive inside than what it looked like from the highway.
It was too early for dinner so we just ordered drinks and some snacks.
Everything we had was good so we are planning to drive out there next Friday to have supper. Its only about 25 miles from Q. Living in the desert you get used to driving long distances to shop or to dine out.

Okay that was our jeep ride for Friday. We particularly enjoyed it as we hadn’t been that way before so we got to see some new country.