Today we travelled north to Boyce Thompson Arboretum State Park. This is the largest and oldest botanical park in Arizona, a comfortable hour and a half from us and well worth the journey. It has plants from the world's deserts, towering trees, captivating cacti, sheer mountain cliffs, a streamside forest, a desert lake, panoramic views, a canyon and much more.
En route we saw the memorial to Tom Mix, a movie star of the silent movies (the 20s I think).
In the movies, Tom Mix's horse, Tony, would prance his way through bad guys' bullets, leap huge chasms and gallop to a maiden's rescue time after time. Then. when Tom and the beautiful rancher's daughter would lean in for a film-ending kiss, Tony would either nudge Tom toward the girl, or swipe his white hat and spoil the moment. Tom Mix died a short distance from the monument at, what is now called, Tom Mix Wash, where roadworks were going on when his fancy car ploughed into them at speed. His horse, Tony, died 2 years to the day at the remarkable age of 37.
On December 5 1947 a stone monument was dedicated to Mix. Gene Autry spoke at the ceremony and tears flowed as Autry's rendition of "Empty Saddles in the Old Corral" drifted out across the quiet desert.
The scenery between Florence and the arboretunm is beautiful. We drove through Tonto National Forest and Ganzalez Pass. Loved it!
Part of the gift shop at the arboretum.
These are Gambels Quail that Jim spends time with around dusk. They are hilarious - always chasing one another and very noisy (the quail, not Jim - though he is quite hilarious too!)
We followed the main trail an a clockwise direction but we did some detours too as it was all very interesting.
We took a wrong turn and ended up on walkabout in Australia!
Something old and crooked according to Jim!!
The blossoms on this are obviously loved by ants as there were, what looked like lines of moving blossoms on the ground - they turned out to be ants, each one transporting a blossom to the ant-hill.
The Children's Garden was lovely and really interesting. It was full of butterflies.
The setting is spectacular!
This is a cactus wren - we saw lots of them.
The ant hill I was talking about.
And the line of ants and blossoms on the way to the ant hill.
Ayer Lake, a manmade mountain lake to encourage water life. It was just beautiful, quite high up as the path winds its way high up in the canyon.
This is an example of a cholla cactus - the one Da Grazia used in his decorated floor.
Jim thinks this was a myrtle tree. The berries were lovely but I didn't taste them.
We followed the path down to the banks of Queen Creek (which was dry, of course).
We crossed the suspension bridge so that Jim could enjoy increasing the sway in order to scare me! I wasn't scared, I just held on!
The berries on this willow tree were lovely - didn't taste them though.
We found ourselves back in the Australian outback.
Some kind of an Australian tree but I didn't taste the berries!
We really enjoyed our few hours at the arboretum. Part of it had a Eucalyptus Forest - the trees were magnificent with bluey-gret trunks. I can't understand why Jim didn't take a photo because I kept commenting on them.
We continued on our way into Superior, the next town - it has a hill with an S and Florence had a hill with an F so it must be trendy to put a letter on your local hill! In Superior we were in need of sustenance so went to the cafe which has the smallest museum in the world. I just about fitted!
The right location for a museum!
And back home for another relaxing afternoon!
