Breakfast and Apache Trail

Today, Tuesday, we left the motorhome before breakfast and went to Queen's Creek Olive Mill. Last year we had gone to this olive mill for our first time and learned that there was a restaurant on the premises that were serving delicious looking breakfast. So we decided that we wanted to have breakfast there and we were not disappointed. By luck, we found out when we got there that on Tuesdays a 2 for 1 price is offered. We both got a dish that was an eggs bendict style- bread, then egg fritata (not poached), balsamic bacon, chopped tomatoes, avocado and onions,and hollandaise sauce and on the side was a smashed potato and fresh fruit- cantaloupe, honeydew, pineapple and strawberry. It was nice eating on an outdoor patio listening to the birds chirping in the trees.
Leaving the olive mill and working our way around detours we finally got on the Apache Trail. This trail was a route for stagecoaches from Mesa to Globe. Superstition Mountains through which the trail goes is the mountains that Jacob Waltz's Lost Dutchman's mine is supposedly hidden in a canyon. The first several miles has commercial establishments- a museum, a mining camp and Goldfield Ghost Town. We stopped at the museum but didn't go through the museum and then at the Ghost Town. The ghost town had souvenir shops and restaurants and a train ride was also available. We walked about the town and then moved on. As we continued on the trail we passed by Canyon Lake and came to Tortilla Flats, a stagecoach stop. Since it was well passed 12 noon we decided to eat lunch here. We had about a 30 minute wait ( it is spring break and families with kids were in all the commercial areas)and then had a enjoyable lunch of a burger for Tom and a chicken sandwich for me. Shortly after leaving Tortilla Flats, we were on an unpaved road for the next 22 miles. The road was rough but the views were just spectacular. The colorful rocky mountains bordered deep canyons that were covered with huge saquaro cacti and then there were lakes- Apache Lake and Roosevelt Lake - of a beautiful shade of blue. We stopped to take pictures often. The road had many curves, ascents and descents but was wide enough for two cars to pass one another. Traffic on the unpaved was light. When we finally came to the Roosevelt Dam the road was paved from that point as we traveled through Globe and Miami, 2 copper/gold mining towns, and on to Mesa. We got back to the motorhome about 7pm- a long day but worth it. Our days travel was in excess of 100 miles.