Where Am I? -- Volume IV

[Rick Quinn]

We'll start with the road (letters have been scrambled and/or smudged):



Next, there's a rest stop along that road, with a picnic table and a pillar:



Topped by a black iron silhouette of a horse that's been shot full of holes:



Lastly: out west, most of the streams only carry water in the wet season. The rest of the year they are dry, and the bed of a dry stream is known as a wash. This is a wash:



What's the connection? And, by the way,

Where am I?

Name the road!

Name the Rest Stop!

Name that riderless horse!

and (for a bonus):

Name that dry wash! (He's kidding, right? No, actually--I think he's serious!)

Rick

[Mark Sedenquist]

Well, I have an unfair advantage. I know what page in your book the explanation for this place is. I thought I had the topo map of Arizona for the name of the wash. But I must have lent it to someone.

Cool history -- lots of movies!

Mark

[Utahtea]

We'll start with the road (letters have been scrambled and/or smudged):



Next, there's a rest stop along that road, with a picnic table and a pillar:



Topped by a black iron silhouette of a horse that's been shot full of holes:



Lastly: out west, most of the streams only carry water in the wet season. The rest of the year they are dry, and the bed of a dry stream is known as a wash. This is a wash:



What's the connection? And, by the way,

Where am I?

Name the road!

Name the Rest Stop!

Name that riderless horse!

and (for a bonus):

Name that dry wash! (He's kidding, right? No, actually--I think he's serious!)

Rick

Ok...I had to work for this one on google so I'm going to try and answer all the questions! 1st Clue: It was Arizona by the missing road sign in the rocks and the saguaro cactus helped too! 2nd clue: You left to much of the plaque in the second picture and I could get the date Oct. 12, 1940 and from that info VIOLA...a picture hit! ;)

This is the Pinal Pioneer Parkway, Arizona State Highway 79 south of Florence, AZ. This is a memorial to Tom Mix a Western Film superstar at a rest stop near mile marker 116. The silhouette is of Tom Mix's steed "Tony the Wonder Horse". From what I read this is near where he died in a car crash in what is now know as the Tom Mix Wash.

How did I do? We've never been down this road but I have been on I-10 a couple times as an adult.

Utahtea

[Rick Quinn]

This is the Pinal Pioneer Parkway, Arizona State Highway 79 south of Florence, AZ. This is a memorial to Tom Mix a Western Film superstar at a rest stop near mile marker 116. The silhouette is of Tom Mix's steed "Tony the Wonder Horse". From what I read this is near where he died in a car crash in what is now know as the Tom Mix Wash.

How did I do? We've never been down this road but I have been on I-10 a couple times as an adult.

Utahtea

Nice sleuthing! I thought about smudging those dates, but I wanted to leave you guys something you could work with, and sure enough, you found it! You're correct on all counts, all the way down to the name of the Wash where Tom Mix rolled his Cord Phaeton convertible, and died at the scene from a broken neck.

Old Tom most certainly isn't the only person who has ever driven much too fast on that road. The Pinal Pioneer Parkway is a very pretty stretch of two-lane highway that shoots straight as an arrow through a cactus forest. There's little traffic, and wide open spaces that beckon you to fly. In one particular year--2011--the fastest 5% of the vehicles using this stretch of road were clocked at an average speed of 88 mph, which made the Pinal Pioneer Parkway, during the course of that survey, the fastest road in the west! (Actually, it was the fastest road in the entire USA, which is truly amazing!) AZ 79 between Florence and Oracle is what us deep-rooted Phoenix natives have always called the "old road" to Tucson, since it pre-dates the Interstate, and because it still has the look and feel of Arizona the way it used to be, before the mega-population boom turned Phoenix into a major modern city. If you're headed from Phoenix to Tucson, or vice versa, it takes a little longer on this back road (unless you're one of those crazies in the fastest 5%!) For everyone else who's not in a hurry, it's a Scenic Side Trip--an easy alternative to Interstate 10, SST#8 in my book-- that's well worth considering!

Rick

[Rick Quinn]

There are quite a few mountains in the southwestern states that have roads all the way, or most of the way to the summit. Sometimes they lead to fire lookout towers, or radio/TV towers, or ski lifts; sometime the roads are paved, and sometimes they're dirt or gravel, climbing upward through desert scrub, mesquite and pinon forest, pine, and finally stands of Aspen when they switchback their way up to 7,000 feet or more. There's plenty of variety in these mountain-climbing roads, but there's one thing they all have in common: they all have spectacular views! Out west, with our wide open spaces, once you gain a little elevation, you can see most of the way to infinity, and when you can achieve that advantage without getting out of your car, you've cheated your way into something pretty special.

Here's one of my personal favorite spots, where you can drive to a parking area well above 9,000 feet, and gaze to your heart's content without breaking a sweat.

I walk a few yards from my Jeep, and I look to the West:



Then I spin around, and I look to the East:



Keeping my eye glued to my camera's viewfinder and my telephoto lens, I look down:



Yikes, that's a big horse fly! I'm not sure I needed the closeup of his rump!

Where am I, anyway?

This next is not the road to my Where am I spot, but it's close by:



And so is this, a bit of leftover damage from a prior fire season (a common occurrence in these forests):



Give it a guess! (If you've ever been there, it should be easy. If not? You might need more clues!)

Rick

[Rick Quinn]

Two more clues:

Another view looking west, only in this one, the true purpose of the vantage point is a bit more obvious:



And here's another view (from a lower vantage point, in a different season) of that peak that rises immediately to the east. It's a tall sucker! The equipment in the photo above will lift you well above 11,000 feet, yet it's still a significant hike to the summit:



Okay, one more time:

Where am I?

Rick

[Utahtea]

Two more clues:

Another view looking west, only in this one, the true purpose of the vantage point is a bit more obvious:



And here's another view (from a lower vantage point, in a different season) of that peak that rises immediately to the east. It's a tall sucker! The equipment in the photo above will lift you well above 11,000 feet, yet it's still a significant hike to the summit:



Okay, one more time:

Where am I?

Rick

Beautiful location but it's not ringing any bells in my memory bank. It looks like a ski lift in the top picture but I don't ski. I doubt it's California. It's too GREEN. Were all the pictures taken at the same time? I ask because a few of the pictures show fall color and you don't find green in the fall in California. ;)

Utahtea

[Rick Quinn]

Were all the pictures taken at the same time? I ask because a few of the pictures show fall color and you don't find green in the fall in California. ;)

Utahtea

The pictures with the yellow wildflowers were all taken at the same time. The others, in different seasons (and different years). Like I said, it's a personal favorite spot!

Rick

[Rick Quinn]

Okay, here's one last opportunity to sleuth this one out:

I'm at a spot you can drive to, where there's a helluva view. There is what appears to be a ski lift in the vicinity. There is a nearby mountain that I've hinted is well above 11,000 feet tall (or more!); and if all that isn't enough, I give you this:

When you leave this place, you drive back to the main road, and you can turn left, or you can turn right. If you turn right, you'll end up at a place that just about every person reading this has been at least once. If you turn left, you'll pass this building on your way to the nearest town:



C'mon, guys--put me out of my misery, and tell me: Where am I?

Rick

[DonnaR57]

Flagstaff, the Museum of Northern Arizona, near Humphrey's Peak and the ski area there. In one direction you can get to Walnut Crater, Sunset Crater and Waputki NM's. In another, you can get to Grand Canyon's South Rim. In a third direction, you can go to GC's North Rim (IF it's open) and on to Lake Powell, Zion NP, or any number of other attractions.



Donna