Town and Country

We had a fun day on Saturday. We started out with a trip into the country to a little town called Walker up in the Northern Bradshaw mountains. They were having a community yard sale for the benefit of the fire department. Mr. Happy Feet was one of our acquisitions.

It was really a small affair with the sale lasting form 8-11 in the morning followed by a BBQ lunch. But it was very friendly and they had some neat old cars.

Although small now, Walker has significance in that it was the first settlement to be able to persist in the Apache Triangle in the late 1800's. If you draw a line from Kingman in the Northwest of Arizona diagonally down to the Tombstone area and then vertically up to around Winslow and then back West to Kingman, you have what was known as the Apache Triangle. This was the last stronghold of the native population and they managed to kill any outsiders who dared to venture into the area. In the 1880's a group of trappers and miners led by mountain man John Walker established a camp in the Bradshaws. They were resolute enough to defeat the residents and led to the army coming into the area and subduing Geronimo and opening the area up to further settlement.

Today, the area is populated by either summer campers or residents hoping to escape the heat of the lower elevations. It reminded me very much of the Adirondacks and their camps. There were signboards directing the way to camp.

The suburb of Pine Mountain had this row of mailboxes. I was only able to get about a third of the string in the shot.

There was another suburb that called themselves Pink Car.

That made sense when you turned around and looked at the creek bed.

The area is quite beautiful but also quite vulnerable. It's just over the hill from the massive Gladiator fire that burned just a few weeks ago. Nevertheless, people flock to it and construct everything from very modest camps up to very impressive homes with gated access and concrete driveways, a rarity in this land of dirt roads. We saw a sign advertising two acres for sale for only $249,000.

Having exhausted downtown Walker, we turned our sites onto downtown Prescott. This weekend they are hosting an annual bluegrass festival on the town square. There was no charge to attend and it was a well staged event with bleachers and a big sound stage and vendors selling all manner of souvenirs. The town square is adjacent to an area known as "Whiskey Row". Now, this is a line of a couple of blocks of restaurants and gift stores, but it once was a line of saloons that stretched from the center of downtown out to the railroads tracks that ran through town. There were over 40 such establishments and the cowboys would come to town and attempt to move down the row, having a shot at each bar along the way. As you would expect, many did not make the whole row before they were escorted to temporary quarters for the night.

We had driven through the downtown area before but had never walked Whiskey Row and so we decided this would be a good time to see the sights and listen to the music. As luck, or providence, would have it, we found a place to park right on the row. As we took our place on the sidewalk, we saw these characters.

The town really takes this Wild West thing seriously. We looked in the windows and visited an indoor mall area where there were some really nice offerings. One shop was run by a Navajo craftsman and was really striking.

Since it was nearing lunchtime, we seized on the excuse to make our way into the Palace Saloon. This authentic establishment commenced business in 1877 and was just lined with historic mementos and pictures.

Today it is a very nice bar and restaurant with an atmosphere that just can't be beat. We really enjoyed our lunch there.

The saloon was used in the production of the film "Junior Bonner" starring Steve McQueen which was released in 1972. There is a mural in celebration of the fact and also an impressive mural by a local artist depicting many of the historical elements of the bar.

While we were in the restaurant area a group came into the bar area and whooped it up. When some came to use the restrooms, we saw that they were all dressed in very well made superhero costumes. There must have been twenty of them and it was quite a contrast to the rest of the surroundings.

We continued on down the row and visited all of the shops we could while listening to the music from the performers across the street.

On another note, I picked up the  motorhome on Friday after being without it for almost a month. While the cooling and exhaust issues have been well repaired, we now find that the dash air is not doing its job. The mechanic thought it was the compressor finally gone bad. I'm going to consult an AC specialist on Monday for a second opinion. But at least we can now plan for some more extended sightseeing excursions.