We drove an hour east to Wickenberg today. Henry Wickenberg struck gold in the mid-1800's and the people followed to make a town. Today, there's still mining and your typical small town farms and services to keep the place going. We are on I-60 which used to be the main route from Phoenix to Blythe, CA. Once the I-10 was built, all traffic went that way and now all the little towns on I-60 are run-down and almost non-existent. If you haven't seen Disney/Pixar's movie, "Cars", it depicts what happened to all the little towns along historic Route 66 when the big interstates were built. We are so far in the middle of nowhere, cell phones don't work and the internet is available only after working hours. The office in the RV parks turns it off from public use so they can use it during the day.

Part way, we encountered a fruit and veggie stand at the side of the road in a small town called Aguilla. What was cool about it was they had Spanish music playing and all the items were in baskets with $1 the price for anything in a basket. For $20 we filled our fridge to brimming with fruits and veggies. Actually, we have to store some of it in our outside storage bins that get to experience close to freezing temps overnight. Works great for extra fridge space.

Wickenberg had a nice museum of cowboy art, artifacts, and historical dioramas (sp?). Jim took a nice picture of one of the many hand-tooled and silver-inlaid saddle and briddle combinations. Most of the items in the museum are gifts from families that live here or have fallen in love with the area. Currently, there are about a half a dozen guest dude ranches operating in the area for city-dudes like us to go experience the ranch life.

An interesting fact is that Wickenberg is where the Bola tie originated. In our family, our great-uncle Webb Fallis was an avid collector of the western ties and I am lucky to possess a couple of them.