Chloride, AZ

With the Discovery in the shop getting the damage from our Vegas trip repaired, I’ve been left with an all-wheel drive Ford Escape we’ve come to know as the Loanerlander. It has a truly awesome air conditioner, half-decent stereo, and the cutest little street tires that have ever mated with a “utility” vehicle. Playing it safe, we planned to do some hiking for a change and spent a hopeful Friday evening watching this:

Saturday morning looked good, dark clouds filled the sky and it was just barely into the 80s by the time we headed out. I was hoping for a good rain on our hike, since there is no shade to be found in the local hills. I’d never checked out Camp Beale before so we headed up to the loop trail.

We only made it about 20 minutes in before we realized we’d been had. A gang of bandits had stolen our rain! We retreated to the air conditioned safety of the Loanerlander, grateful to have escaped the 115° heat and 90% humidity with our lives, and watched in horror as our beloved storm headed south…

Plan B

My favorite type of exploration starts something like this: “Well, we have a full tank of gas… let’s go that way!”

Armed with ice cold mango smoothies we headed northeast, determined to stop at every single historical marker along the side of Highway 93 (there are lots of ‘em). On arrival at the third one we decided to check out the tiny community of Chloride, AZ. We ended up spending the rest of the afternoon looking at all the old buildings, interesting yard art, odd fences, and learning a bit about the history of the town from the general store’s owner over a cold root beer.

We took an easy track the long way home for a dinner of uberthin seared steak and a bottle of red vino.