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We started of with a long, dusty and not terribly scenic county road. What you see is pretty much what we saw for the first half of this trip. |
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The highlight of this part of the trip was the cave dwellings. Didn't try to go inside, these belong to someone. They're caves dug into the rock and then a front put up to close them in. |
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Once we got off the dirt road and headed up the highway towards Needles Overlook we started seeing a number of dirt roads off the highway that looked interesting so we took one of them and found a perfect spot for our picnic. |
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We found a friendly looking rock, spread out the blanket and had our picnic. You can see the view we had to endure while we ate behind us in this shot :) |
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From there it was a short drive on up to Needles Overlook. You can see the needles (pillars that are left as the softer rock around them is eroded) in this shot. There are a lot more of them, but this is pretty representative of what you'll see looking down from the overlook. |
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And of course we have to have some Flowers for the honey - |
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and a tree for me. |
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Honey climed the hill -- |
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It was starting to get late by now, it was a busy Monday morning and we got a late start, so we decided that we'd put off the other 2 overlooks that are in that area and head back.
Along the way we took a couple more detours on side trails leading off the main road and found a couple of interesting spots. It took a little 4 wheeling to get to this giant rock out in the middle of nowhere.
There was a heavy duty jeep trail that continued on, but we're not into crawling 3 foot high rocks so we stopped here for a couple minutes to admire the scenery. |
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Jailhouse Rock was our last stop and not to be outdone by the Honey I had to climb my own rock. That little dot up by the opening to the cistern is me :)
There's an insteresting story behind the name of the rock. Seems legend has it that a rancher who lived there back in the old west days would lower his wife down into the cistern when he had to go to town to keep her safe (or her virtue intact not sure which). Hence the name Jailhouse Rock.
The cistern is about 30 feet across and about 30 feet deep with sheer walls. Once in you'd definitely need help to get out. |
