Duffey Day

We will call today Duffey day because he planned the day. We left Surprise to drive to Lake Pleasant and as we got to the gate I heard a dinging and asked Duf if he heard it. He claimed I was hearing things and continued on. At the gate we stopped to purchase our yearly pass and Duffey asked if the yearly pass was a calendar year, it is December,  or the year from the date of purchase. He stumped the ranger selling the passes until we finally figured out it was good for one year from date of purchase and allowed access to all parks in Maricopa County. When he restarted the Jeep he also heard the beep and realized he had forgotten to fill the Jeep with gas. Duffey asked the ranger where we could get gas and she said we were going to have to drive 20 miles to  New River. This was our first wake up call about the desert and we realized we need to be aware of gas levels, water, and food.

Instead of exploring Lake Pleasant we drove to New River which turned out to be a cute little oldish town in the desert with a gas station that inflated their price! Imagine that! Along with gas we purchased a cooler and water and soda and snacks. While we were in New River we decided to investigate sunset horseback riding on the ridges in the mountains and four wheeling in the mountains. The road to these adventures was an adventure in itself. The road started out being a new blacktop road and about two miles down there was a new elementary school. After the school the road abruptly turned to gravel with a crudely hand painted sign advertising horseback rides and four wheel adventures. 

We continued down the extremely dusty road and followed the crude signs until we came upon a stable for the horseback riding. There was an extremely polite young cowboy there and he had all the information about riding and reservations. 

We continued down the road and it got dustier and the houses along the way were in sad shape with junk all around them but the signs for four wheeling continued. The road wound up the mountain and then it ended into a nice house in the middle of the dusty dry desert with only cacti around. There was a sign pointing to an office so Duf got out and slowly headed that way. It was like a scene from a movie, the house was not bad but it was surrounded by cacti and dust, there was an ARMY flag flying over the office door, a fairly new pickup with a thick rope for a dog tied to the hitch. Duf knocked on the door and it opened so he walked in and yelled but no one responded. He came back to the Jeep because that thick rope had us spooked that a huge dog might appear.. We waited a bit and then decided we should call before returning and we headed back down the extremely dry dusty road. Although this road was not much of a road it did not have any pot holes! Duf was in heaven, a Jeep road!

On the way home we stopped at a golf shop because Duf feels I need new clubs because we are going to golf while we are here and the guys he met while golfing have golfing wives. I did not find anything that I liked so we will look again tomorrow.

We stopped at an Italian restaurant and the food was all homemade and delicious. After eating we came home and showered to remove all the dust! This is the desert and once out of town it is dry and dusty. When we leave Happy Trails and turn north it is 2 miles until dry desert and cacti with wind and dust!