We had an exciting day. We left out from Apache Junction, Arizona with north being our only direction we needed to go. We decided to take Hwy 88 North out of Lost Dutchman’s State Park. After driving for a while we came up on a sign that said “pavement ends in 1/2 mile”! It was supposed to be Highway, right? We weren’t expecting a dirt road. Dirt roads hadn’t stopped us before, so we thought we’d keep on going and see how far we can go. We saw a sign that said “Roosevelt 22 miles “! 22 MILES ON DIRT ROAD! This IS the adventure we had been looking for!
We soon realized that we had just drove the APACHE TRAIL! Built in the early 1900’s at the cost of $250,000 to get to the Roosevelt Dam.
Then we saw a sign for Tonto National Monument. This wasn’t a National Park we had on our list to go to. We knew nothing about it. Since it was two miles south of the dam, we couldn’t let the opportunity pass of visiting it. Tonto National Monument is the home of Salado-style cliff dwellings built in the 1400’s. The tour was interesting. The park doesn’t have as many visitors as other National Parks, because it’s out of the way, but it was well worth the trip. We took our time at the ruins and since we were the only ones there at the time, had a great conversation with the park ranger on duty, Libby. We saw a rattle snake on the trail. Some more excitement for the day.
Very fun exciting and unexpected day of traveling in Arizona! We could spend more time out here.
