Apache Junction, AZ Area....Roosevelt Lake, Tonto National Monument & The Bush Scenic Highway..19th to 23rd March

First stop on today's sightseeing tour from Apache Junction is Goldfield Ghost Town....
the site of an old gold mine, interesting and fun...a lot of the buildings/artefacts being authentic...

There's a neat little train ride around the town plus guided tours if desired...

We spent a very pleasant hour wandering around....

It's a great time to visit Arizona, the desert  is so colourful with the cacti and flowers bursting into beautiful blooms...

Our route today is on highway 88 which can be seen in the background !!  A few miles further on from this viewpoint the road turns into 22 miles of unpaved road, our truck is made for it but not our favourite terrain...having said that we saw 2 campers towing their 5th wheels along it !!!

A section of the 22 miles !!!

Final viewing for now for us of the majestic Saguaro .....

Roosevelt Lake and the end of the 22 miles of unpaved road......The Roosevelt Lake Bridge built to  relocate traffic from across the top of the dam is the longest two lane single span arch bridge in North America...

Roosevelt Lake from the 1 mile hike up to the Cliff Dwelling at Tonto National Monument...a good leg stretch as it was a 350ft elevation gain..... 

The Salado Cliff Dwelling, smaller than some cliff dwellings we have seen but amazing never the less ..the Salado people like the Pueblo Indians at Mesa Verde abandoned the caves for no known reason.....

Another beautiful morning as we head today along The Bush Highway stopping at various scenic points for a few short hikes.....The Salt River and source of most of the water for Phoenix...sadly we didn't see any of the wild horses that live in this area and feed on the river eels....but we did meet some fellow hikers, Canadian Snowbirds, a good chat with them, one of the group was originally from Glasgow...

Back home and our pet woodpecker sat for ages admiring himself in our wing mirror :)
Our neighbours another couple from Canada have delayed their return home to Alberta as they have had another 5 inches of snow !! We though will be moving out tomorrow to Silver City, New Mexico and the first stop on our journey east....