Cartour Spring 2017 number 15

Wednesday March 29th


     Okay, getting ahead on the record here in the room of the Best Western Copper Hills Inn in downtown Globe, Arizona, Home apparently of Big Copper judging by the decapitated mountains. After the gorp fest down in the free breakfast room (I should have stuck with the fresh mint and orange slice enhanced ice water in the big jar in the lobby instead of the egg, sausage, fried potatoes, biscuit and gravy, waffle with syrup and butter and peach yoghurt) we repaired to the room to compute our brains out. Still no mention of any plan or vision of what next although a bike ride around Globe (which will be difficult to say the least due to the topography of the town and the insane amount of traffic) has been proposed and seconded.

Mine tailings white on the horizon

Old downtown Globe

Good old Noftsger Hill Inn in the distance

Another distant view of the mysterious Noftsger Hill Inn

Headquarters for the Waggin' Vineyard across from our Best Western Copper Hill Inn lodging

St. Peter's Lutheran

S made me take this

Globe High School from the parking lot

May be inhabited on the ground floor and maybe this building is part of the Globe High School campus cause there was a sign on the side of the building indicating that this was a no smoking campus

Nice motorcycle people leaving Best Western - note vineyard in background strangely located here in downtown Globe

More of the nice motorcycle people leaving this morning - where are they going - will we ever see them again? Can't really see much of this long meandering city from the Best Western balcony thus the rather pointless pics of the moto group who may or may not be as nice as the one guy we spoke with yesterday who shared with S and I a goofy video on his phone and what is even nice about that anyway?

note - the above bikers not to be confused with the below bikers who were kind enough to us in the bar but I wouldn't push it.

And we finally leave Globe and go northeast on highway 60 to Show Low and Pine Top where we turned easterly  onto 260 to Eager and finally south southeast on 180 out of Eager to Alpine. Show Low was totally over-the-top late 20th century prosperity sprawl - Loews across 5 lanes of road from Home Depot, Walmart, wellness centers, huge hospital, mile after mile of gated recent made communities, malls all over; utterly unexpected and frankly weird on a high plateau in the middle of nowhere northeastern Arizona - boom town on steroids. Traffic?!! It was going to be cold at night so we lit out for tiny Alpine 20 miles south of Eager which was itself a return to normal old west stagnation and found it highly better in the Escudillo Mountain Cabins in Alpine than we had even thought likely. Propriatrice told us to go to a certain dirt road and drive up until a closed gate appeared and take a walk or a bike. We walked a long ways up this beautiful little track and ran into 7 elk cows a'munching in an open forest of mature evergreens.  Beat but not beaten we adjourned to the Alpine Grill and Still which looked closed but on closer view held a back bar with 7 or 9 ageable men and one woman playing their hearts out to a good house. No seats left but were offered accommodation with 3 ageable bikers riding from Fresno to no place in particular. And so back to the cabin and good night. It snowed here yesterday; not particularly odd at 8000 feet.