Bloody Basin Road to Cave Creek

The three siblings were up early and ready on Sunday morning for another trip!  Dad opted not to go on this one; he had some important business to take of.  It had been cloudy and sprinkling rain since the previous evening, but we decided to go ahead with our drive, and be ready to turn back if it started to rain too much.

I-17 to the Bloody Basin road, then East.  Some cloudiness, but not bad.  A couple of miles in we stopped to admire a Park Service building, and there were some cows there.  

Harry took over the driving as we continued on our journey, because he's a little more experienced driving on rough and muddy roads.  The road climbs into a moderate hilly area, and the day did not get brighter.  In fact, we started to get into some fog.

The road looked solid, but the muddy layer on the top turned out to be a little treacherous.  There was a little bit of slipping and sliding, but thanks to Harry's good driving and Ellen's sturdy truck, we stayed on the road.

We were coming down a pretty scary, moderately steep hill, with several switchbacks, and at the bottom we passed some other recreationists who had slid off the road and gotten stuck.  They were in a 2-wheel-drive truck, loaded with quads and boats and other equipment.  They were safe and had another vehicle in their party, so we wished them luck and drove on.

We had planned to take a small side trip North to the "Sheep Bridge", but the road was so muddy that we decided to save that for another day. 

Eventually we got the the connecting road that heads down to the Cave Creek area, and it was clearly labeled every couple of miles as  MCDOT 24.  (Maricopa County Dept. of Tranportation, we assumed.)  We don't know why it was so important for the road to have so many signs.

MCDOT24 is a little rough, but not nearly as muddy as the terrain we just crossed, so we all relaxed a little that the risk of getting stuck was diminished.  There's are some cool rocks along this stretch.

 

We went thru some campgrounds, past some isolated hinterland houses, thru some golf courses, and then we were in the outskirts of Cave Creek, at the North end of Metro Phoenix.  There was some touristy shops and restaurants, and we stopped and had some Mexican food at a gift shop/small restaurant called the Indian Village.  (There weren't any Indians there, except maybe tourists from India.)  The ambience was a little weird, and the service somewhat "impersonal", but the food was quite good. 

Back to Lenny's driveway, a little bit of work scraping and spraying some of the mud off Ellen's truck.  

Summary of the trip:  Rocks, mud, clouds, fog, and sparse desert hillsides.  It's Arizona - we love it, rain or shine!

Update:  The next day.  That mud was stuck to my driveway like concrete!  I knocked it loose with the pick, hoed it into piles, and swept it up as best I could.  There was at least 50 pounds of it.  :)