Sunday, February 14, 2010

BILODEAU IS GOLDEN!



OLYMPIC GOLD! Congratulation to Alexandre Bilodeau for winning GOLD in the Men's Mogul Ski ..... well done!


I guess this is the first Gold Canada has won out of three Olympic Games held on our soil... you could see he was in the zone prior to his run...


For me the best part of the gold medal was watching the reaction of his brother Frederick.....priceless!
Another great day in Arizona with blue sky and lots of sun again and great temperatures. Decided to check out some back roads for the trip we have coming up at the end of the month when we will transfer up to Phoenix to pick up Deb and Gerard, and then head for Sedona. I took Hwy. 77 and headed north to a town called Mammoth.

This is a little map I found that shows a bit of the area, and the different counties in AZ.


It was a great day for a ride, and you follow along side the Galiuro Mountains as you head north. They are part of the Coronado National Forest.




I made it to the Town of Mammoth. Small town of about 1400 people. It is call Mammoth, due to the fact in the 1880's there was a "Mammoth" Gold rush here.... the whole town was build on the gold rush. Today the town survives on some light industry, and tourism. Here is a bit

The Town sits on the Shores of the Mighty San Pedro River..... eerrrrrr..... only problem is there is no water in it ring now anyways..... It is hard to find a river in southern Az. with any water in them.... "life in the desert"!

They built a monument in Town to honour all the miners who gave their lives for the mine. There was a list of about 100 men who died in the mine! Over 600,000 lbs of ore came out of the mine...The picture is a miner drilling inside the mine, on the roof... kind of cool.

One of the ore cars used at the mine...

At some points they brought ore down the sides of mountains, and used this type of car with 2 cables to support it as it came down the mountain...

This guy as you can tell, has been a miner for quite some time now.... they don't feed him much...

This is his brother...

I love the background in this picture from behind the display...

I drove a few miles north of Mammoth, and found an RV Park in the middle of the desert. Also found a few Saguaro's to boot...

All this riding makes you hungry and I had to stop for a grilled cheese sandwich which was terrific!. Met a nice couple here that pulled in for a bite to eat. He could not believe I was riding my bike in the "winter".... He said he would only ride his in the "summer" when he had his Triumph. (It was like... 75 degrees when he said this....) His wife saw the Ontario plate on the bike and asked me where I was from.... after telling her, she proceeded to tell me that she now know more about Canada than ever before due to watching the Olympics. She thought the opening of the games was terrific!

It is a great drive to Mammoth, and the last 12 miles you go down a 9% grade to the desert floor. After lunch I headed back up the mountain towards Tucson.... at the top of the 12 mile climb I took this picture.... the snow was starting to get close... (ya, I kind of used the zoom lens a bit in this picture....)

The mountains are beautiful and rugged in this area....

Talked to my Valentine today on Skype, and apparently Shawn had to twirl Emmie like they do in the figure skating today, as she thought she was an Olympic Champion!

Till tomorrow.....

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