We had a great breakfast at a local restaurant in Quartzsite. Upon leaving we took pictures of the Judge Hagley Preservation Project. He was known as the marrying judge. He supposedly married over 43,000 couples!
Before getting to Phoenix, Arizona, we took a detour to get off Interstate 10 for a bit. We headed toward the town of Gila Bend, Arizona. Right before getting there we found two fighter jets outside the entrance to the Gila Bend Municipal Airport. We thought that it looked abandoned.
We had a quick lunch at a local Subway and took some dinosaur pictures outside. They were all covered with stickers. Must be a local custom!?!
Next, we headed to an interesting large calibration marker. It is one of many. According to Atlas Obscura, “The Casa Grande targets were part of what was officially called the Casa Grande Photogrammetric Test Range which, consisted of a 16 x 16 mile grid of 60' targets. Each target was roughly spaced 1 mile apart. These targets provided a fixed spatial grid for photogrammetric calculations for mapping camera calibration/validation.”
We must not forget about our dog, Tickle. It’s tough finding a nice grassy area to walk on in the desert. A slight detour took us to a nice, grassy park in Casa Grande. She was happy to pee and drink lots of water.
Finally we got to the Picacho Peak State Park in Arizona. There lots of camping grounds and trails to hike. We chose to do the visitor center and circular drive through the park. It was a hot day. We got some nice pictures of Saguaro trees. Check out those pictures of fruit growing on the tips of the trees. The Saguaro is endemic to the Sonoran Desert.
According to Wikipedia, “In 1982, a man was killed after damaging a saguaro. David Grundman was shooting and poking at a saguaro cactus in an effort to make it fall. An arm of the cactus, weighing 230 kg (500 lb), fell onto him, crushing him and his car. The trunk of the cactus then also fell on him. The Austin Lounge Lizards wrote the song ‘Saguaro’ about this death.”
So, we headed for Wilcox, Arizona to rest at our hotel. We had a great day!
