CANYON DE CHELLY STORY.

At a recent meeting with friends, John and Wanda Hofstetter, John mentioned he had seen the pictures of our accident in the Canyon De Chelly on May 27th. He wanted details of our injuries and so on. Then he looked at his wife and said, “Wow! I guess that beats our Canyon De Chelly story. We thought we had the ultimate vacation nightmare at Canyon De Chelly.”
Of course, I asked for an explanation and here is what they told me:
“We went on a tour, like you, inside the canyon and got caught by a flash flood,” said John.  ” The water swept through the canyon and caught us where we couldn’t go forward nor back. Our tour driver drove up onto a high spot near the canyon wall as the water rose higher and higher. We had no cell phones,  nor way to communicate. We voted among ourselves whether to stay in the van or to climb out of the canyon.”
John, who is in a wheelchair, and Wanda,  decided to stay as did a couple of others, while the rest of the group opted to climb out of the canyon before it got dark.

“We made them give us everything they had to eat,” said Wanda.  So, for our dinner that night, we had candy bars, some fruit, and some chips,” she laughed. “We eventually felt comfortable enough to fall asleep, but the people on top of the ridge were so worried about us, they kept calling down to see if we were okay and kept us awake.”
They spent the whole night in the canyon. Now, that has to be a scary experience. I marveled that they could sleep at all.
Travel agents will tell you that  memorable vacations are those where something went wrong for better or worse.   Hopefully not as serious as our accident, but it was definitely memorable.

TORTILLA FLAT AND THE LOST DUTCHMAN MINE

This is Superstition Mountain, a range of sharp pinnacles that rises from the flat desert floor right here in Apache Junction. This is Apache territory, these mountains, and Geronimo ranged over this barely hospitable range that is now partly Tonto National Forest, and Lost Dutchman State Park. The Roosevelt dam, brought a string of lakes to the area and its a much valued recreation area, along with the privately owned town of Tortilla Flat.

We drove up the Apache Trail which is nicely paved, now. Much of the Apache Trail was inundated by the Roosevelt Dam, but we did see portions of the foot and horse paths used by the Indians. Its interesting terrain puts water and cactus in close proximity.

We enjoyed the drive to Tortilla Flat, basically a tourist town now. It was once a valuable stage stop. It served the builders of the dam with supplies and recreation in the 1940's. It has a colorful history of the  many owners who basically went broke here. Each bought the whole town. Part of that history feeds upon the stories of the Lost Dutchman Mine. Stories, plural because there are so many tales one can count on it being a fake. Yet, in the years after the identified Dutchman, a German named Jacob Waltz (an American spelling) supposedly convinced some people there was a rich mine. No one has ever found it, though thousands have searched, some losing their lives in the process, which is how legends are built.

Tortilla Flat has a population of six people and about six buildings. A saloon, gift shop with books and souvenirs, a restaurant and small general store and a small school museum. Probably not the original school. We watched a band set up on the patio of the saloon.  The area is subject to flash floods and a man named John Cline, with some people from the Tonto Basin were stranded at this spot when the flood waters cut them off from the roads. With nothing but flour and water, they made tortillas to eat and Cline Christened the place Tortilla Flat. That fact is fairly well documented unlike the Dutchman's mine.

 The restaurant and bar has wall after wall of dollar bills as wallpaper, a tradition that started in about 1950 or so. The building burned once with all of its dollars. It was robbed once of its dollars. But, the custom flourishes and it is estimated that approximately 160,000 dollars are stapled to the walls. Some get damaged as you brush by them; many have signatures or are accompanied with a business card.  

The place has a number of murals suggestive of its more notorious past.

Plenty of old rusty relics decorate the grounds and buildings.

 We drove past the town headed for Fish Camp. We got by this flooded section of road easily, but the road is under repair and closed ahead of this spot and we only ventured a few miles farther. 
On the way out, we stopped at the State Camp Grounds and got close to some of the saguaro cactus, not very big ones, but fat and healthy looking.

We drove by forests of Cholla, some in bloom making a white dotted hillside. And, at the end of the day, we stopped by Jim's home lodge of the VFW for a hamburger and a beer. Good stuff. And, here, they serve the beer COLD!

And, I always thought that indentation in the bottom of the mug was to give you the idea you had more than you actually got, kind of a "packaging" trick.