More from Prescott

 

We’re so glad we decided to stop here again. White Spar Campground is a great location, very close to downtown, and has miles of hiking trails that begin at the campground. We had a couple of hot days, in the mid 80s, and Jim didn’t want to hike, so he took advantage of his Silver Sneakers and went to town to a gym, while I did a 4 mile loop hike from our site. Not much scenery except trees, but I did find this, a memorial to the Granite Mountains Hotshots, the 19 firefighters killed in the Yarnell Hill Fire on June 30, 2013.

Another day we took the bikes to the Peavine trail, a 5 mile Rails-to-Trails which intersects with the 4 mile Iron King trail. They are dirt/crushed stone, fairly level, and the scenery is wonderful.

The Peavine follows the former Santa Fe, Prescott & Phoenix Railway corridor that fed into Prescott, once the territorial capital of Arizona and famous for its copper mining. It goes through the Granite Dells and by Watson Lake.

We also took the turn-off down the Iron Horse trail, which goes to Prescott Valley.

The trail follows the route of the Prescott East Railroad, which once served the area’s Iron King Mine. A pleasant place to ride, and hardly anyone else out on the trails.

Jim asked the woman at Fitness for 10 how much it would cost for me to come in on a day pass, and she said she would just give me a free 5 day pass. What a generous deal, since he told her we were just visiting. It’s a very nice facility, so on our second hot day we both worked out and showered there. After our workout we stopped to check out a cat shelter I had read about, Miss Kitty’s Cat House.

We’re always looking for places to settle down one day, and a good cat rescue, Trader Joe’s and Sprouts are high on my list, which Prescott has. I would definitely volunteer at Miss Kitty’s if we spent much time here.

Jim is giving a little loving to one of the 17 cats residing in the house, which are all up for adoption. No humans live there, and it is completely run by donations and volunteers. I loved it!

We’ve been here a week and managed to visit the Raven three times already, twice with Eric and Maureen. Our favorite beer so far is The Dudes White Russian Stout. Sounds odd but it is really tasty! I imagine we’ll have to stop in there at least once more before we leave. They change out taps daily so there is always something new and different. After happy hour there we saw some activity in the town square and walked over to see if it was a free concert. Turns out it was an event for the National Day of Prayer. Not our thing, so we got out of there pretty quickly!

Camp hosts from McDowell, John and Sandy, arrived at the fairgrounds in Prescott Valley last week, so they came by yesterday for a hike and bike ride from our site. John rode, but Sandy hiked with us a few miles up the Goldwater Lake trail. It’s a bit too “mountainous” for us to enjoy mountain biking here, but the hiking is good. There’s still some water in Bannon Creek, which the trail parallels for a good distance,

Th

A little glimpse of Granite Mountain to our north.

Lower Goldwater Lake through the trees.

Looks like a few days of rain and colder temps in store, so we’ll hang around here and wait it out while taking care of some shopping and laundry.