Goldfield, Arizona

Wednesday, March 7, 2018 – Location:  Superstition Mountain near Apache Junction, Arizona

This morning started out warm.  No heater needed.  Going to be 80 today with high clouds throughout the day.

Yesterday, Deb, Riley and I decided that this day would be a good one to go the two miles over to the Goldfield ghost town.  It became a booming gold town when gold was discovered in the late 1800s and men came to work at the Mammoth Gold Mine.  When the gold mine shut down, everyone left and it became a ghost town.  In 1966, Bob Schoose fell in love with the place and spent years rebuilding the town.

We arrived about 10 o’clock just in time for the train tour of the town.  Aboard the train we got our first look of Goldfield as the train circled the town.  The conductor, Billy Red Horse,  was great!  He gave us a lot of history of the town and Superstition Mountain.

For the past week, we wondered what that big whistle sound was we could hear all day long.  Turns out, it comes from Goldfield.  The train whistles and they also have a big steam whistle that sounds off.  Probably used in the old days for shift change notifications at the mine.

There’s Billy Red Horse taking tickets.  In his younger days, he was an auctioneer back east.

After Thomas Edison invented electricity and it caught on, they built electric tracks and used these electric trains for the mine.

The majestic Superstition Mountain overlooks Goldfield.

The next tour was the historic Mammoth Gold Mine.  A very small section of it unfortunately.  There is our tour guide dressed in miner’s garb except for the sunglasses.

In case you wondered how!  This is the honeydew wagon the miners used while down in the mine all day.  Hauled it out just like the gold.  Might call it liquid gold (:

They didn’t have lanterns in the mine.  You could bring your own, but at $3 a day most miners couldn’t afford one.  They brought candles with them to see by.  This is what they could see.  They did most of their work in complete darkness.

The last tour must have been added as an amusement.  The Mystery Shack.

It was a tilted shack that gave confusing illusions of what is up and down.  Thought this one was interesting with the water running uphill and pouring into a bucket.

Water coming out of nowhere. 

After our tours, we walked around Goldfield.  Very reasonable price.  You can tour the town for free.  The three tours were $18 total for seniors.

There I am jeepin’ through Bulldog Canyon!

Took these high pictures of uptown and downtown while on the balcony of the brothel.  Don’t tell Dolly.

At the end of our tour of Goldfield, Deb treated us all to an ice cream cone.  Thanks Deb!  We were there for two and a half hours and had a great time.  Yuma, not so much.  He had to stay home and guard the place.

The remainder of the afternoon, I laid around the MH and rested.  Nice to have an overcast day for a change.  With the light breeze, it was a nice.

Around 5 o’clock, I tried to take Yuma for a walk, but he would not go with me.  Kept trying to visit with Deb and Riley.  So, we all took a walk and Yuma was happy.  What a nut!  I think he missed seeing them all day.

Tonight is Survivor, so better wrap things up.

See you later.