Since we did not make it to Yarnell yesterday we decided we would go there today. We also decided to take the main road and not some dirt road as we tried yesterday. Yarnell is about 9 miles north of Congress but those miles go across a mountain. The little shops were all closed today, it seems that they are only open on weekends or Wednesday through the weekend. We found a restaurant that was open, "Rumor Grille", and decided to eat lunch there.
From the outside, it didn't look like anything out of the ordinary, a xerox sign on the door stated it was fine dining. Once inside we were pleasantly surprised that it looked like a really nice restaurant with table cloths even.
The menu had a nice variety of burgers, soups, salads as well as dinners. We elected to eat lunch foods- Tom had a California burger with avocado, red onion and Swiss cheese served with potato salad, I had the Chef's omelet which today's omelet was a avocado, red onion and Swiss cheese omelet served with a Caesar salad. Tom also had a piece of pecan pie. All the food was very good and portions were more than adequate. We were told that the chef makes the salads (potato and others) and the soups daily.
While eating in this restaurant there was a group of 7 young men (3 Asian-that spoke very little English- and 4 Caucasions-one that did some interpreting) dining there also. We all left the restaurant about the same time. We noticed 2 vehicles parked along the street that had clothe covers covering the entire vehicle which this group of men went to and removed the covers. The vehicles that were uncovered were both different but both had their hoods covered with some kind of material and the bodies were white with black stripes. There were 2 other normal looking vehicles that this group had also. As they drove off we were perplexed as to what the story was with this group and their vehicles. Later in the day we met up with a trio of bicyclists. Thinking that they may be local folks I asked them if they knew what those vehicles were. They also had seen the vehicles but didn't know what the story was but as we talked one speculated that they may have been prototype vehicles disquised as to not give away any secrets of new vehicle developement. Sounds reasonable.
We drove about the town and found at the end of one street the Shrine of Saint Joseph. This Shrine was in a rocky hillside. The 14 stations of the cross were placed within the rocks of the hillside. It was a fairly steep climb up the rustic stone steps that went to the top and then down. It was a pretty area with statues of Christ incorporated in the rocks.
We drove a little further to Peeples Valley. In this valley there were several large ranches with beef cattle or horses.
On the return drive we stopped at a viewing pull-off as we descended the mountain. We had passed a large dairy farm yesterday that we could now see just how big it was. We also could see the many dirt roads that were in the desert area below.
As we were passing through Congress we stopped to take a picture of "Frog Rock" a large rock that has been painted like a frog. There is a restaurant nearby called the "Frog Rock Cafe".
The weather was nice today but tonight rain is expected to start and the next 2 days are to be rainy.
