Typically, during Mother's Day weekend, John and Mary and I try to get out of town.  Simply put, it's a special weekend, so we always make sure to celebrate it in style.  Last year was one of our best Mother's Day trips, when we took Erika to Kentucky Camp, a Forest Service cabin that we rented.  That one is going to be hard to beat!

This year, however, I had other plans for Mother's Day.  My girlfriends from United Friends and I had put together a lovely Mother's Day brunch for our mothers and mothers-in-law.  Part of our planning involved us getting together the night before to put together flower arrangements for our guests.  That meant that we only had a half of a day to do our Mother's Day as a family.

Originally, our plan was to go hiking on Saturday; we were going to do a nice, easy trail - maybe Clover Creek, Houston Brothers, or Kinder Crossing.  But then we stayed up too late on Friday night because I had finally graduated with my Certificate of Completion in Web Development from Paradise Valley Community College.  (That certainly gave us cause to celebrate!)  With that, we decided to keep it simple and go for a scenic drive instead.

John would not tell me at first where we were going, but along the way, he dropped a few "punny" hints.  As we left the house, he said, "We're going to take a drive and go see the fighting."  Then, as we started off on the Loop 101 going west towards I-17, I asked him, "So how far are we going?", to which he replied, "It's not that far, see."

"Hmmm..." I muttered.  "What's Iran got to do with it?"  Farsi, of course, is one of the languages of Iran.

"Nothing," he answered. 

We exited the Loop 101 at Bell Road and took that across Sun City to Grand Ave (US 60).  I knew then that we were going to go through Wickenburg, and John confirmed that we were.  Once in Wickenburg, John mistakenly stayed on US 60 but turned around several miles later when he realized that he was going the wrong way.  He meant to take SR 93 instead, towards Wikiup.

"So where ARE we going?" I asked again.  The suspense was killing me!

"I'll give you another hint," John said.  "We're going to Sack Pop."

This hint was the most obvious.  "Sack Pop?  Oh, you mean Bagdad!"

Indeed John was taking us to Bagdad, Arizona, just because it was someplace we had never visited before.  Bagdad is one of Arizona's company mining towns.  Like Morenci, it is owned the the Phelps Dodge Corporation and is one of the sites where copper is mined.  Phelps Dodge owns the town, including all of the housing and commercial property.

To get to Bagdad, we took Highway 93 northwest out of Wickenburg for about thirty miles, until we reached the turnoff for Highway 97.  From there, it was another 16 miles to Highway 96 and the turnoff for Bagdad.  The scenic drive took us through the high desert and scenic forests of Joshua trees.  It was the first time Mary had seen Joshua trees, and she thought that they were pretty cool.

We arrived in Bagdad around 11:00 a.m. - just in time for lunch.  Since we had not packed any food in the car, we hoped that we would find a place to eat.  Although there were restaurants in town, we were very disappointed to find that all of them were closed, including the Bagdad Cafe located in Copper Plaza. 

So...now what?

Fortunately, there was a Basha's grocery store in Copper Plaza, and they had pre-made sandwiches.  We bought a couple of them and took them with us on the drive.

While we were in Bagdad, we took a quick tour through the small town.  We found the entrance to the mining operations; we also drove through a lovely residential area that was well-manicured.  It reminded us a lot of Kearney, AZ, which is run by the Asarco Mines.  Truly the mines take care of their employees!

Since there wasn't much for us to do in Bagdad, we didn't stay long.  It was time for us to start back towards Phoenix, so we left Bagdad and continued along Highway 96.  This part of our drive was very scenic, as it wound through the ranching communities of Hillside and Kirkland.  We took a side trip through Yava along the way; John considered taking a dirt road (Mule Shoe Ranch Road) all the way back to Highway 93, but considering that we were driving my brand new Camry, I talked him out of it.  (He had already gotten into trouble taking my new car off-road near the Drop Zone; he wasn't allowed to do it again!)

Highway 96 ended in Kirkland Junction at US 89; from there, we took US 89 south through Peeples Valley and into Yarnell, then down Yarnell Hill.  The ride down Yarnell Hill was a lot of fun and was also very scenic.  Along the way, we pulled off onto an overlook so that we could take a few pictures.  Then, as we continued on, John put my new Camry to the test to see how well it did going down steep hills.  It did very well, as a matter of fact; he didn't have to hit the brakes at all!

Mary fell asleep on the way back to Wickenburg.  While she slept, John and I tried out a few more of his "punny" Arizona place names.  For example: "Cut the Cost of Services" was Phoenix (Fee-Nix), "Witch's Religion City" was Wickenburg, "More than One Male Child" was Tucson, "Pennant Pole" was Flagstaff...and so on.  It was a great way to pass the time.

Once we were back in Wickenburg, we stopped to use the restroom then continued on towards Phoenix.  To get home, we took AZ 74 past Lake Pleasant towards I-17 to avoid having to go through Sun City again.  Although we got stuck behind several slow-pokes along the way, traffic was not bad at all, and we were soon home again, with plenty of time to spare.

And thus ended another nice day trip...

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