Mesa Area – Apache Junction

Today, we were by ourselves again for the first time since our weekend in Yuma, AZ. We had heard about ‘ghost towns’ around Apache Junction, AZ. There were two of them, and they were Goldfield and Tortilla Flat. Fortunately, they were both near Apache Junction and out the same highway. While we had the purchased internet at the Flying J last night, I looked them up and got directions. When the busy Phoenix traffic died down about 11:00am, we hooked up the car to the motorhome and headed toward Mesa, AZ. It is our plan to go to a very large flea market tomorrow in Mesa. We parked the motorhome for the day and night at a new Wal-Mart about a ¼ mile from the flea market, and headed out.

It was past noon when we headed out, and we were hungry for Mexican food. In Apache Junction, we found the Los Amigos Locos restaurant, and since the name reminded us of our companions for the last week, we gave it a try. It was very good!

Goldfield turned out to be a cutesy town with a lot of souvenir shops, and we spent about an hour there.

Tortilla Flat was a little different. I reminded us somewhat of Lukenbach, Texas. There were only two stores, a restaurant and an ice cream shop. Both had other things to buy. In between, there was a covered patio where they sold bar-b-que in between the stores, and there was a live three-man band playing. They play mostly 70’s songs, and they were pretty entertaining. They were scheduled to play from 12 – 4, and we arrived at 3:30pm, but we watched for the 30 minutes.

The first store had some interesting artwork on the bathroom walls. I popped my head in the women's restroom and took a couple of quick shots. Also, note the dollar bills all over the store walls......... some had been torn off!
The scenery to and from Tortilla Flat was nice. Here are a few pictures. The sun was going down on the way back, and we good some good shots of the needles on the cactus being illuminated by the sunlight.
For dinner, we decided to have some of the jumbo shrimp that we bought in Mexico. Patsy fixed it with some stir fry vegetables from Trader Joe’s.