We learned more about petrified wood before retiring last night. It was formed 50 to 200 million years ago from buried trees that turned to stone caused by water seeping into the logs, filling the decaying wood with mineral matter. What we see today in petrified wood (the reds, yellows, browns, blues, blue greens, black, gray) is a piece of antiquity.
We arose (42 degrees and cloudy) to scrutinize our itinerary. There are so many scenic routes we could take! After breakfast we were off (top up!) to Show Low at 9:15 on Rt 180E. It was pretty flat terrain, altitude 5600 ft., in the high desert. At 10:00 it was 38 degrees and showers. At 10:30 it was 36 degrees and snow showers and getting a little dicey, down to 33! But the roads were still only wet. It soon began snowing harder but at 11:00 we headed to Starbucks in Show Low where the snow had stopped. We arrived at Starbucks and at 11:25 we were back on the road.
At noon, 38 degrees, we headed along a scenic byway for Globe where the weather looked better. We drove through a ponderosa pine forest, the nation's largest contiguous stand of ponderosa pines. Bits of blue sky (42 degrees) were visible a half hour after leaving Starbucks. The temp gradually went up16 degrees to 54. We could see the White Mountains in the distance. We drove through forested mountains, through the White Mountain Apache Reservation and decided to put the top down at 12:45, 56 degrees. At the Salt River Canyon there were breathtaking views of colorful rock faces...reds,yellows, greens, and browns. There were great winding switchbacks down the cliff face to a bridge crossing the Salt River. At 1:15 it was 64 degrees.
After driving through the Tonto National Forest we arrived in Globe at 2PM. We took a walk around town, stopped at local community arts center in the old, grand county courthouse and bought a local painting that looked like weather we'd traveled through, monsoons in the distance! We left Globe at 2:50, 69 degrees, and headed for pizza in Phoenix. But first we stopped at Besh-Ba-Gowah, a partially restored ancient ruin of the Salada people who occupied the site between 1225 AD and 1400 AD. AMAZING!!
We continued on Rt. 60 west to Phoenix at 3:25. Again we drove through the Tonto National Forest and soon drove through the Queen Creek Tunnel, our first tunnel on our road trip. We soon glimpsed skinny tall cacti along the road. At 4:00 it was 73 degrees and we were down at 2600 feet.
We arrived at Pizza Bianco in Phoenix at 5:15, after literally going in circles to find it! We shared a caprese salad, Peter had a pizza margarita with sausage and I had a pizza rosa with red onion and Arizona pistachios. Peter knew that this place was on everyone's top five pizza places in U.S. Pizza Bianco did not disappoint! It was FABULOUS! At 6:30 we were on our way west to find accommodations for the night. At 7:15 we arrived in Sun City, Arizona and checked in for the night.
2 comments:
Too funny. Having never heard of SALADA, I googled it to learn about them and to my surprise all I got was Salada tea. So then I googled Besh-Ba-Gowah and it talked of the SALADO people - had never heard of them either but now I know.
So glad you're enjoying the blog. So far, you're the only one commenting, as I knew you would. Thanks!
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