Day 23 - Drive on the Lake Valley Back Country Byway

We were up by 6:30, packed our lunches, cooked and ate breakfast outside, and the 4 of us were in the Gregory's CRV by 8 and on our way for a "driving day". We did about a 150 mile loop called the Lake Valley Back Country Byway only returning to the CG around 4:15  Boy, did we ever see some amazing landscape.  We stopped quickly when a pronghorn antelope crossed the road right in front of us.  There were about 5 in the area and they move quickly - 53 miles per hour.

We passed this windmill farm along the way!

Love the view!

A pronghorned antelope!

Some pretty flowers along the roadside!

Our next stop, which was a planned one, was at the Ghost Town of Lake Valley. It was founded with the discovery of silver in the area in 1878.  The town moved twice before settling in this present site in 1882, when The Bridal Chamber Mine was discovered.  It produced 2.5 million ounces of silver ore so pure that it was shipped unsmelted to the mint.  A stage stop and railhead, Lake Valley grew to 4,000 people, with 12 saloons, 3 churches, 2 newspapers, a school, stores and hotels.  The 1893 silver panic wiped out the town and a fire destroyed Main Street in 1895.  Lake Valley is truly a ghost town, as the last permanent residents left in 1994.  We toured the schoolhouse  that was built in 1904, and it is furnished with all the original desks, teacher's desk, slate blackboards, maps, etc.  It is amazing.  The church and several homes also remain but are not able to be toured.  When you walk the area, you find 1,000's of pieces of old glass and pottery are on the ground.  This gal wanted to take some of the beautiful etched and weather glass and so much of it was that gorgeous aqua color.  We even found some pieces of blue willow pottery.  But being a good girl, I picked it up, I enjoyed looking at it, and Ken took a photo of several pieces in the palm of my hand.  Since the brochure told you no artifacts were to leave the area, I reluctantly put all the pieces back on the ground.  Would they really have missed a piece or two?????  After all, they had so many!!!!

Some info about the Lake Valley Ghost Town

It is out i the middle of nowhere, but amazing how many
of the buildings are still standing!

The school that was built in 1904!

Nothing changed in this area since it was built!

Some artifacts from the area!

You got to be kidding!  I hate snakes!

This is where a full time RVer lives while having a workcamping
job at the Ghost Town.  He will probably stay here with his wife
on this job assignment for several years!  They go to Las Cruses
1X a week for groceries and supplies!

Another view of the ghost town.

One of the homes!

A leftover!

The dump!

The old mine shaft!

Look at those gorgeous treasures!!!  I just want 1!

Obviously, the Church!

Another house!

That is just a small area of the beautiful broken glass
and lots of pieces of pottery!

This was the 1st school that become the post office and
social center!

  

From there we continued onto the Geronimo Trail Scenic Byway.  Apache attacks were a constant threat in this land where Native Americans led by local chiefs like Geronimo fought against the unending tide of settlement.  Indians, however, where not the only threat to local residents.  The Kingston Gang, Farmington Gang, and Butch Cassidy all terrorized this region of Mexico!  

Amazing to see all these beautiful yellow flowers blomoing
in the desert area.

A trip back "memory lane" for those of you who remember
the old Burma Shave slogans or rhymes.  Here is the start -

......and on...

....and on.....

The end!

Those beautiful yellow flowers, again!

We then started driving on the very, very windy and curvy narrow road through Gila National Forest and Wilderness.  What a gorgeous area. We all agreed that it was the most curvy road we had ever driven on.  We got to an elevation of about 8,000 feet.  There was an area of the forest that had a serious fire on the hillside and all the trees we severely charred.  We did stop along the way at a boondocking camping area where we enjoyed our packed lunch at a picnic table. 

We are gaining altitude!  Note all the charred trees!

Breathtaking!

Does the roadway look a bit curvy and treacherous!

The road wound around these mountains for miles and miles!

How can the farmers possibly keep track of their cattle and
how do the cows get down in the gorge?????

  

We left the forest and windy road and stopped to view the Santa Rita copper mine.  We had never seen anything like it!!!  It was HUGE!  The steam shovel used to scoop up the copper costs 14 million and each dump truck about 2 1/2 million.  Imagine???   This mine operates 24 hours per day and 365 days a year. Since 1920, 2 billion tons of material have been removed from the mine.  It is more than 1 mile across and 1,600 feet deep.  Currently 100 million lbs. of copper are produced from the material from this mine each year.  

Our 1st view of the copper mine!

Trucks were running continually!

Just massive!!!

....and it looks even larger!

We can do it!!!!!!

One of those 2 1/2 million dollar trucks!

These men are inside the steam shovel bucket!

We drove on to check out the historical district of Silver City, but it was rather disappointing.  It is an arsty area and most of the shoppes are not open on Sunday.  Many of the store fronts were vacant and it didn't look to be one of the Nicest Little Small Towns in America as advertised.  Not sure I would go out of my way to go there.

Downtown Silver City!

These tables are made from the inside of the Saguaro Cactus!

W only returned to the CG at 4:30 after a long, but fun day of driving.  A special thank you to Chuck for doing such a great job of driving on that windy road and to Duane and Louise who recommended this scenic drive.  We appreciate it! Also, Duane, we saw your beautiful woodburned plaque in the office at Dream Catcher CG.  Nice job!

It was time to start getting ready for our departure tomorrow, so Ken did his thing outside while I did a thorough job of cleaning Waldo inside.  After dinner, we went to Gregory's motorhome for some serious talking about life and then played Skip-Bo and Pinochle.  The women won both but I must admit that I made a booboo at the end of Skip-Bo and I am not certain that we legitimately won that game!  Oh well, we will be happy to take the win!  We did take some photos of the full moon!

Okay, Tucson, here we come.  We are just praying that while we are there our slide gets repaired.  We have now camped for almost 70 days in Waldo without our largest slide working, and it is getting rather old.  The part is supposed to arrive on Monday and the repairs begin 1st thing Tuesday morning.  We are holding our breath.  We will not believe how large Waldo really is inside when he gets repaired.  We can hardly wait!!!!!!!