Friends and Morenci

Hi all,
Things keep rolling along at Roper Lake State Park. We are now being called short timers as we are down to our last month here. Three months have flew by quickly though the weather has been a bit under the norms for the most part. Our departure is set for March 1 although they keep telling us we are welcome to stay on if we wish, don't know if we will take them up on that??

Mt Graham from front of our campsite

 We had a great surprise this week, Thursday morning Wendy and I had gatehouse duty and realized we had a camper coming in that wasn't on the roster from Wednesday. We recognized the last name as some friends of ours but the first name was different. We looked at the invoice and realized it was Tim and Renee whom we had first met at Custer and periodically have kept in contact with.
 They picked the perfect time to come as we got done working just after noon and would be off for three days. They arrived about 2 and not even knowing had a site just a few sites down from us. We chatted some then decided to get together for dinner. After dinner we chatted more and they introduced us to the game of Pegs and Jokers.

 The next day was suppose to be a sunny 70 and we thought to take a ride but then just decided to hang in the park, chatting, and basking in the Arizona sun. We decided on a fish fry at our favorite restaurant(Manor House) and then more Pegs and Jokers, I think they got us hooked.
 Sadly they only planned to stay a couple days so were leaving Saturday. But not to sad because as we chatted about our plans we both were planning on heading to Utah about the same time. So we got together before they left and made reservations to camp together then.
 Saturday afternoon we joined Bob and Rose for a drive to Morenci. Morenci AZ is a small town about 45 miles north of Safford. Morenci is home to one of the largest open pit copper mines in the United States. The small town is almost all owned by the mine so if they deem necessary they can relocate housing and business to mine there. Huge is all you think as you see this, the mine, the piles of discarded rock, and the equipment used. They have a couple look outs where the public can view the goings on.

Bob and Rose

 One really neat thing we passed was the Old Morenci Catholic Cemetery. This is the only remains of the original Morenci. It is built on a steep 36% grade hillside in mostly rocks and gravel. Some of the graves have been washed loose and are sliding downhill.

 We drove a bit of the mountain drive beyond Morenci that goes to Alpine, this is 83 miles of twist, turns, ups, and downs that we will have to start out early one day to complete.