Getting away from the mold and pollen allergens has been FANTASTIC for me: Dyan says she can see it simply in the way I carry myself. I feel more energized, alert and focused again.
Anyway, Prescott is a great place for us, especially right now. It's a very quiet and peaceful town and our "piece" of it is extremely quiet. In fact, some days we feel so remote we drive into town in the evening and circle the courthouse square where they have concerts on the lawn each evening, just to feel like we part of a community!!
We actually live in the Prescott National Forest -- we walk two short blocks, enter a gate and we are on open trails that soon become primitive. Then we climb about 600 feet and can see Goldwater Lake and several peaks surrounding Prescott.
Here's a view from our street looking through the Ponderosa pines at a rising full moon - so that would be east, I guess. It's been a challenge to go from 6 feet above sea level to 5600, but we're making the transition. Then there's the fact that almost every movement requires an elevation change of some kind: a little different then the flat sandbar concept of Hilton Head.
A couple of nights ago we drove (because we don't have the legs yet to walk up that hill!) about a quarter mile form home to see the sun setting out west, and found a nice little hill to look out over town. So I took a series of shots to create a "cyclorama" of what we (Dyan and I, that is) call "the bowl" because the hills and mountains surround Prescott much like a bowl.
So here's the first shot: we're basically looking down the ridge that borders the south side of town. Our house would be behind Dyan's left shoulder and over that ridge, in what is called Hidden Valley. It's "hidden" from Prescott by the aforementioned ridge. In the near background is a peak with a white granite crag, called White Spar. The western access to our valley is state route 89 or "White Spar" Road.
The next shot catches Thumb Butte out on the west edge of town. Probably the best known landmark in town. We have NO IDEA how it got its name, maybe you could help us out here. Then as you follow the horizon to your you see granite mountain, which sits on the northwest edge of town - up close, it is no doubt granite and no doubt a mountain, but from this shot it looks like a hill.
Then we scan out to the north where Granite Mountain flattens out into a ridge line called The Dells which look like piles of beige granite, which you can't see from here.
Here you see the ridge line continuing to the east. The white structure in the center right is Bucky's Casino, built on a large hill. Behind that in the distance you can see a mountain range some 60-90 mile off to the North. That's approximately where you'd find Sedona and a little farther north would be the Grand Canyon.
Next, you can see the casino again on the left edge of this picture. Just to the right of it you may be able to see a ghost of a dark shadow. This is the outline of the San Fransisco Mountains. Much more visible in person than here, but a good measure of how clear the air is or isn't on any given day. This is where you'd find Flagstaff, or "Flag" as the Phoenicians call it, just a two hour drive on I-17.
Also more ridges start cropping up here again as we move east and a little south of town.
A little more south and you see the houses on the ridges and hills along the southeastern part of "the bowl". These all have views of the town and the premium views of Thumb Butte and Granite Mountain. Actually the lot we are standing on is undeveloped and still for sale -- we speculate the owner is holding out for a few mil. Down in Prescott there are a lot of deciduous trees along with pines, here it looks more like chaparral with a few junipers - consistent with this particular elevation.
Then almost directly south (I think) more of the same, but you can see a road along the side of the ridge. This is Senator Highway which leads out to Goldwater Lake, then turns into a dirt road. (Highway?, ah politics and pork barrels, no?) Anyway these remind me of Alamogordo Jr High. In seventh grade we would use our lunch break to go to the campaign headquarters and pick up free buttons for JFK and Barry Goldwater.As you move right in this picture start to see the pines again, and this right about where we live, just over the next rise, as they say.
And, finally a little more to the southwest, you can see the peak just right of center, which is where we started. Over the ridge on the left is the other road into Hidden Valley, which comes off of Senator Highway.You can't exactly tell it, but these ridges are covered with Ponderosa Pines, as they are for the next several miles into the National Forest - cool, eh? Desolate? Na!
http://www.fs.fed.us/r3/prescott/
Anyway, the terrain, the elevation and the scenery change as you move around this bowl and throughout the town. We could take pictures at almost every intersection and spend days trying to describe it but we won't.
If you stayed with it this far, you deserve a little reward, as we got ours. Here is that sunset over Thumb Butte - hey it's a real "Butte", eh?
And here it is silhouetting both Thumb Butte and Granite Mountain.
If you need more photos, just Google Prescott, or Sadona, or Grand Canyon and start pokin' around.
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