My Trip into the Desert

Sunday, I drove out to the middle of No Where, Arizona to see Castle Hot Springs and to pay my side of a bet. The hot springs has some serious history for Arizona. Back in the early 1900’s, it was the place to go if you were a rich notable family. Past patrons include members of the Rockefellers, Wrigleys, Roosevelts, Cabots, and Fords.

The property hasn’t operated for the past 25 years. It is closed to the public, owned by a private party, and for sale for a pithy $10,500,000. We had to travel about 10 miles on an unmaintained dirt road to get there. Once we were there, we could only look at it from a distance, but it’s quite amazing. The picture above is accurate – green green grass surrounded by palm trees set against a hill of saguaro cactus. It’s an oasis in the middle of no where. Check out this photo from there site.
This isn’t a historical picture and it shows how far it is from any kind of civilization.

After we took a few minutes to absorb the uniqueness, we drove back down the road a piece and picnicked under some shade trees while the kids played and climbed in the dried river bed – sounds like the desert eh? Apparently, we’ve had much more rain this winter than is normal – I’ve been pleasantly surprised by how much it rains in the desert, so I was disappointed to learn this isn’t normal. Due to the rain, the desert was very green. Flowers were in bloom and it looked very similar to areas of Nevada that I’ve 4×4′d in. We stayed out there until it started to get too windy and the sun started to fade.

Picture from the River Bed

Picture of the hillside. Flowers in bloom.