Day trippin'

Remember a couple days ago when I said that Ryan and I were gonna fly the coop? Well, on Wednesday, we loaded up the Brave Little Toaster with food, beer and the pup and headed out East towards the Superstition Mountains for a little day trip.

We planned to drive up the Apache Trail through the Superstition Mountains to Roosevelt Lake. Our first stop was Goldfield Ghost Town, the Valley's "only authentic ghost town". I'm pretty sure about eleventymillion towns in Arizona boast the same title.

It was really picturesque, and it was such a perfect Arizona sunny day.

Well, until Eva had to drop a deuce in the middle of town square. In front of families and old folks and business owners. Who ever heard the like?!

The building above is the Bordello. I guess it used to be what we western folks call a "whore house", but now it's a "museum" that sells fancy hats. I don't understand the correlation?

Arizona is littered with old mining towns, where copper mining was used to support our state's commerce in the early days. In the Superstitions, though, gold mining was the big draw. There's even a popular legend in AZ about the Lost Dutchman's Gold Mine...purportedly, there's still a HUGE gold mine nestled in the Superstitions that people try to find every single year. Not to be a debbie downer or anything, but none of them have found the infamous mine. Aaaaand many of them have died.

So Goldfield Ghost Town is one of those long-forgotten gold mining towns.

Now, it's a place where you can buy jalapeno flavored jelly, drink locally brewed beer and sit on rickety chairs next to cowboy mannequins that have robot voices.

Has anyone ever figured out why Arizonans like talking cowboy mannequins so much? I swear, they're in every single tourist town here.

We then headed on our way and stopped at Canyon Lake for a photo op.

Wouldn't you?

And as we progressed onto the 33 miles of unpaved road, Eva realized that she DID NOT enjoy the bouncy, winding trail. Above is how she sat for much of the 33 miles.

"THANK GOD WE MADE IT OUT ALIVE"

When we finally arrived at the lake, we sprawled out on a blanket on our own private section of beach and relaaaaaaaaaaxed.

And, of course, enjoyed a well-deserved beer.

What Vogue covers would look like if hillbillies ran the magazine.

Even our aquaphobic pooch ventured into the water!

Oh, y'know, just Sasquatchin' around.

The lake brought out Ryan's inner wilderness, apparently.

On the way home, we drove through Payson and treated ourselves to dinner at Chili's. It was a truly magical day and we promised ourselves that we'd do this more often.

When was the last time YOU got outta dodge?