Kathy and I took another “day trip” this past week. This is just one of the wonderful things about our location (Camp Verde) in Arizona. There is so much to see and so many different landscapes within just a short drive in the car.
This time we decided to head east and then north a bit into “high country” to see some snow and check out the towns we see mentioned on the 6 o’clock news weather report.
Our elevation here at Camp Verde is 3146′ while Payson is at 4890′ and Show Low is at 6345′ above sea level. It was a 65 degree afternoon here while in Show Low the high that afternoon barely got to 50 degrees.
We checked out the lake and the dam at Show Low Lake, we visited the Allen Severson Wetland area, and stopped to check out a really cool store with a lot of woodcarvings and beautiful hand crafted furniture. The store was called Wild Woods Furniture and Gifts.
But the best part of the trip came totally by surprise. As we were headed back west from Snowflake to Payson, we came across men on horseback escorted by police along state routes. I remembered seeing a story on the morning news that this was the week when, every year The Hashknife Pony Express makes its ride every January/February traveling 200 miles from Holbrook to Scottsdale, Arizona, and delivering 20,000 first-class letters by horseback. The ride is led by the Navajo County Hashknife Sheriff’s Posse. More than two dozen riders in authentic cowboy clothing carry the mail, relaying the bags along the route. The ride ends in Scottsdale with the ending ceremony at the Museum Of The West on Marshall Way.
The video below shows the Hashknife Pony Express just taking off again after a short rest at a local shopping mall parking lot. Cowboy hats, chaps, boots, and spurs …
