Visiting Mesa andPhon D Sutton

We have been in Mesa for about two weeks now, and plan to leave tomorrow for Quartzsite. We have been staying at a recreation area named Phon D Sutton which is located along the Salt River about 6 miles north of the developed part of Mesa. During the summer it is a parking lot for day use visitors, most of whom are riding the Salt River on inner tubes. During the winter season dry camping is permitted in the parking lots. We are using our solar capability to good advantage, and have found a service station in Mesa where we can dump our holding tanks and get fresh water. With our satellite set up we are very comfortable, although cell phone service is touch and go.

We have visited Mom a couple times, had dinner with Mom, Daryl and Donna; hiked the nature trails here along the river and gone to Gardunos Mexican Restaurant to celebrate my birthday and Valentines Day.

Today we went for a hike with Daryl and his botanist friend Les. We drove a short distance up the Apache Trail and hiked into the Superstition Mountains a ways. We started out on a very busy trail, but soon left the trail and followed a mountain stream up hill for about half a mile. It was rough going in spots, and the water was really flowing since we have had a lot of rain in the past couple days.

Tomorrow we plan to continue our journey west. This has been a good place to spend a couple weeks. Maybe in future years we may spend more time here.