A Short Trip With Grandma Gail

Thursday October 29th, we headed east of Phoenix to Boyce Thompson Arboretum State Park. Plants from all over the world were exhibited in a 725-acre garden founded by William Boyce Thompson, who made his fortune mining around Superior. He helped lead a Red Cross mercy mission to Russia after the revolution in 1917. What he saw convinced him that man and plants need one another for survival. Upon his return, he endowed the Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant research at Cornell and the arboretum, dedicated in 1929.

Something is always in bloom here, no matter the season. Spring wildflowers grow everywhere on the grounds and are particularly popular. Numerous trails snake off from the visitors center, each providing a different experience.

We continued east through the mining towns of Superior, Miami and Globe. Once in Globe, we made our way downtown to the old Gila County courthouse, which was completed in 1907 and remained in use until 1976. After eight years of inactivity and decay, the building was refurbished and now houses the Cobre Valley Center for the Arts.

Local painters display their work in the first-floor gallery, and in the basement, weavers sit at looms crafting colorful creations. We walked the grand staircase with its copper banisters to the second floor, where a theater group occupies what was once the courtroom. Across the hall is the office of the clerk of the Superior Court. At least that's what is said on the glass door. It was a little eerie to glance inside the virtually empty room these days and see the big black safe still in the wall.

We had our picnic lunch in the Children's Garden and that way Trevor could play too.

It was a bit humbling to gaze to the top of a 160-foot-tall red gum eucalyptus, with a trunk measuring eight feet in diameter.

The trail along Queen Creek was gorgeous and cool beneath the cottonwood, Arizona ash, and pecan trees.

Picketpost House

Grandma Gail

The rare desert specimens from around the world, including this bizarre Boojum tree featured in Lewis Carroll's poem, "The Hunting of the Snark," revived our interest in things with spines.

Done!