On the road to Prescott Valley

And so friend Patty was heading over to the new Sam's Club and invited me along. I'll always jump at the chance for a ride to somewhere new to me; who knows what I might see.

Torn up streets from the SR89/SR69 work, that's what, except that the machines are creeping well into the city, tearing up the east end of Gurley here. (The picture of the Apache Motel is specifically for my friend from Aliso Viejo.)

The new underpass. Note art work; I think that the white is scheduled to disappear.

Of course, everyone is asking about the fate of that wide spot on the north side of SR69, next to the casino entrance. It has a very permanent look, as though the tribe has business plans.

Remnants of one of the old SR69s was quite visible when we stopped at Lowe's. If your eyes are better than mine, you can read the history of the highway below. If not, then hie yourself over to Lowe's and read the sign in person. Take a topo map with you to help visualizing the route. My memory from a '30s childhood in Phoenix is that the parental and grandparental units wouldn't have dreamed of taking the unpaved, rough Black Canyon Highway up to Prescott; the White Spar was paved, after all and besides, it went through the forest.

Two hilltops topped by housing outcrops. A move to zone against hilltop housing was stopped in its tracks once the sponsors realized that under a recent state constitutional amendment such zoning would be considered a "taking" of property [value], costing the city far too much. Ah well. I hope those folks enjoy their view.

Diamond Valley is a small unincorporated subdivision in the hills between Prescott and Prescott Valley; a feature is that many of the streets are named after gemstones. You'll find Diamond, Sapphire, Ruby, Jade and Emerald, as well as Onyx and Turquoise Drives. But developers wouldn't leave well enough alone -- in addition to these gems, they felt obligated to include the native rhinestone. Huh?

Further along, we spotted that interesting truck to the left above. As we caught up with the vehicle (below), my friend observed, "Oh -- that must be Thing One and Thing Two." I leave you on that Seussian note.

The several routes of SR69

Standing in the Best Buy parking lot, looking to the northwest, one gets a good picture of three different versions of SR69, the highway that links Prescott to Phoenix and points south ... to Flagstaff and points north (as well as east and west). When we first arrived in these parts, the highway that we knew was the abandoned road of the great gash in the hillside that's very visible in all these pictures. I believe that the current roadbed consists largely of a widening and straightening of the route, which had previously been leveled. If you look carefully, you will see a road line higher on the hill, one which follows the contours instead of fighting them. That much older road disappears into the hillside scraped by Lowe's (below), which is too bad -- I've always had a hankering to walk it.

This view shows a couple of tight curves in the old road. Of course, when I was young, the preferred route to Prescott was what was then US 89, the famous Mexico to Canada highway. Yes, it was all curves as it passed between the Bradshaws and Prietas, but it was paved. You couldn't say that for the Black Canyon Highway, the eastern route, of which this road section is a small part. I recall hearing the grown-ups talk about the dangers of the Black Canyon road, which they wouldn't dream of driving. How the world has changed in my lifetime!!