ODE TO THE ROADS

EDITOR'S NOTE: The following road trips are enjoyable any time of year, but because Arizona does, in fact, have four seasons, you'll want to check the weather and road conditions before heading out. Also, what you see in winter may not be what you see in summer. One more thing: In the interest of maximizing the number of observations along the way, we had our writers and photographers travel separately. Each had unique experiences, which is why the photos and the narratives don't always overlap. Collectively, they covered a lot of ground. Here are their stories.

PAYSON TO SPRINGERVILLE

By Nikki Buchanan Photographs by Karen Shell

Because a road trip wouldn't be a road trip without a hearty breakfast right out of the gate, my buddy and I pull into Miss Fitz 260 Café, about a half-mile from the junction that puts us on the long and winding road to Springerville. We've whizzed past Payson's fast-food joints to find this: a red-and-white building with wooden silhouettes of a cowboy and cowgirl at the front door and a sign advertising pies and cinnamon rolls.

A gray-haired, pony-tailed fellow in a loose-fitting tank top, scuffed cowboy boots and a billed Confederate-flag cap with “Rebel” written across the front holds the door open for the two of us, making a slight bow and an ushering gesture with his left hand. He heads for a booth, while my friend and I grab a couple of red swivel stools at the counter. Our pretty, justpast-middle-aged waitress, June, flashes a smile and asks me what I'd like to drink, calling me “hon” in our first exchange and two or three times thereafter. And she isn't resurrecting kiss-my-grits Flo from Mel's Diner. She means it.

When I mention to her that the place looks clean and cozy, a far cry from the grimy, down-at-the-heels joint I visited some 10 years ago, she explains that it was bought last year by Diane Fitzpatrick, her chef-son Jeremy and her friend Kathy Bickert — who all worked together at the Chaparral Pines club in Payson (as did she). The partners scrubbed the place, hung pictures of Jesus and made it a thriving concern. We wolf down fluffy omelets, all the while talking to June and “Rebel” Jim, who's moseyed over to join the conversation. He's lived in Payson 15 years and tears up when he talks about his wife, who passed away two years ago.

Back in the car, we ease down into Star Valley (a highway town that survives on speeding tick-ets), driving through rolling hills of scrub pine and juniper, then climbing in altitude until both sides of the road are thick with tall pines. Pulling off at a visitors center for a scenic overlook of Rim Country, we count seven layers of mountain ranges that must stretch back a hundred miles, finding Mount Ord and Four Peaks in the hazy distance. I've lived in Arizona most of my life, and this spectacular, far-as-the-eye-can-see kind of view reminds me why I do.

We get back on the road, watching as shade and thicket give way to sun and meadow — fenced green patches where cows and horses graze. Neatly kept farms dot the highway, many of them anchored by two-story homes with wraparound porches. They look modern, most of them, not like the homes of hardscrabble pioneers.

We eventually hit Show Low and stop along the main drag to see what the Trailblazer Trading Post might be all about. As we peer in the window, Chuck Spurgeon, a Vietnam vet and lifelong, resident of Show Low, gives us a friendly wave. At first blush, the place looks like a man cave, every glass case and shelf neatly arranged with knives, sharpening stones and scissors. Spurgeon, who wears a beard and wire-rimmed glasses, his long white hair pulled back in a ponytail, unsheathes a beautiful, hand-carved blade from its leather holster, explaining that the man who made this one-of-a-kind knife is a local artisan. We poke around a bit more carefully and find jewelry, vintage dinnerware and other treasures a woman might like. Spurgeon explains that he doesn't want pawn, but rather rare and beautiful things he can sell or trade.

ALONG THE WAY

Payson

Tour Zane Grey's Cabin in Payson, 928-474-3483, www.rimcountry museums.com

Grab a cheeseburger at Al & Diane's Red Onion in Heber, 928-535-4433, www.redonionon line.com

Visit the Pinedale School bell off State Route 260 in Pinedale

Look for elk at Jacques Marsh Wildlife Area near Pinetop, 602-942-3000, www. azgfd.gov

Hike the Mogollon Rim Overlook and Nature Trail off State Route 260 near Pinetop, www.wmon line.com

Order a slice of caramel apple pie at the Greer Café, 928-735-7406, www. thegreercafe.com

Check out the Madonna of the Trail statue on East Main Street in Springerville

Springerville

"What about the Jim Morrison poster?" I ask, "Is that for sale?" Spurgeon shakes his head ruefully and says, "Nah, I love my Jim Morrison," which launches a discussion of our favorite '60sera bands. We're two aging hippies, happy to reminisce about Hendrix and the rest. He tells us that his granddad was a railroader, and his dad brought natural gas to the White Mountains. He's clearly sorry to see us go.

Entering Lakeside, I'm sidetracked by a lovely old whitewashed building with porticos at either end. What was it before, I wonder, as I stick my head into Interior Complements — an art gallery and framer on one end of the building — to find out. Bonnie Peterson, a tiny, sweet-faced woman, probably in her midto late-60s, is busy measuring a frame, but she's not too busy to talk to me. She points out the punched-tin ceiling and shows me the fireplace, made of petrified wood. She explains that the structure, which dates to 1938, was formerly the lobby of a lodge, a gathering spot for card games and socializing. "I love this old building," she says. "It makes me feel good."

Now we're on to Harvest Moon in Lakeside, a hewn-log cabin, built in the 1920s, its bright-red, corrugated-steel roof dotted with cow skulls. Outside the entrance lie arrangements of sunbleached bones, antlers and rusty tools. Inside, the place smells heavenly, and when I comment on it, owner Kurt Augustine, another ponytailed guy in an expensive red shirt, leads me to a display of native herbs, including bundled sage and Apache tea. “An Apache woman brings these to me,” he says, pointing out the jewelry, guns and rows of Navajo rugs he often takes as pawn. This store is cool, and Augustine knows it, closing his eyes and basking in the attention as he talks at length about Arizona history like the schoolteacher he used to be.

We're planning to head straight to Springerville, but in McNary, a town inhabited mostly by Apaches, we spot a yellow sign with an arrow that reads “Perry's Frybread.” Turning down a residential street, we find a weathered shack with three picnic tables in the front yard of a very humble house. “Who is Perry?” we ask the frail, black-haired woman behind the counter. “It's our family name,” she says, explaining that she opened the shop to have something to do after her parents died. Waiting for the fry bread, we hear Serena Perry and her girls in the back of the shack, talking and laughing together.

With fry bread in hand, we race toward Springerville before darkness falls and spot two elk grazing in a shaft of sunlight along the road. Hawks hunt overhead, and the setting sun softens the surrounding hills to velvety-looking mounds. With its historic houses set back from the road, Eagar looks romantic in fading light. We snap a picture of a lovely old barn before heading down the main street that ties Eagar to Springerville. By now, we're starving, and The Roost, a wood-floored cottage-restaurant with a fenced yard and tall trees, looks cozy and inviting — a good place to end a long but interesting day.

PORTAL TO PATAGONIA

By Kathy Montgomery Photographs by Mark Lipczynski

Portal Store, Café and Lodge is the only storefront in Portal. It's the picture of a country store, with wooden screen doors, an ice machine and a phone booth. Owner Mitch Webster worked here when he was a kid. Now, he runs the place with his wife, Loni. The building, he says, was purchased from a Sears Roebuck catalog and assembled in 1927, '28 or '29. "There's confusion about that."

The store carries everything from hummingbird earrings and nature guides to wine and canned goods. A display of cobblers sits near the register, next to spiral-bound phone books.

"No one liked the regular phone book," Mitch explains. "This town's pretty ambitious. So they created their own. Kind of like they created their own fire department. They don't get any tax money. They just donated money and built it."

Mitch tells my husband and me the town founders named Portal while sitting on the bench in front of his store.

"Portal was just an entry into Paradise," he says. "Paradise was the big mining town," which is just up the road about 5 miles.

These days, Portal Lodge attracts naturalists of all stripes who come for the area's diversity, plus a surprising number of nature-film crews.

"Sometimes, we have two or three film crews," Mitch says. "We have to keep them separated, because what they're working on is proprietary.

That's where Barney Tomberlin comes in.

"Barney takes some one way. I take some the other way," Mitch says.

You can find Barney in the back-room café for breakfast three or four days a week. "Just tell him my usual," he tells the waitress, who charges it to his tab.

Barney wears a T-shirt spattered with pictures of insects. He bats at a fly as he explains how he parlayed a survey job with the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish into a business collecting bugs and snakes for universities and natural-history museums. He keeps 40 species on hand. He also does a lot of rattlesnake relocations.

There are hunters who see a snake and want to kill it, because they've done that all their lives, Barney says. “We don't do that here. Most of us just want to put it off the road.”

Barney excuses himself to grab a fly swatter. “Sorry,” he says. “I can't stand flies around. If I get this, he'll either leave or he'll be dead.”

On our way out of Portal, my husband and I take a short detour onto Foothills Road to glimpse white domes in astronomy village, where people have built observatories adjacent to their homes, then head for Paradise, only to find there isn't much there. It's now home to just four full-time residents, according to Jackie Lewis at the George Walker House (bed and make-your-own breakfast), who welcomes birders to her feeders.

Our time for Paradise is short, so we push over Onion Saddle into Pinery Canyon, where blackened sticks from the Horseshoe 2 fire contrast strikingly with a blaze of wildflowers. Past Chiricahua National Monument, the landscape changes from forest to prairie, giving way to fields of corn and modest homes with American flags and pickup trucks. By late afternoon, we pass through downtown Douglas, looking like a 20th century movie set, then head to Bisbee for the night.

Once famous for its eccentrics, Bisbee feels more upscale than funky, with luxury suites, high-end boutiques and contemporary restaurants.

The most colorful character on Main Street is the “Killer Bee Guy,” Reed Booth, who sells honey from hives people paid him to remove. Wearing a camo hat and T-shirt, he keeps up a steady patter outside his tiny shop, a former stairwell.

“Get a free taste of honey, honey! Have fun buzzing around!”

Nearby Lowell feels more like the Bisbee of old. Sitting at a curvy Formica counter at The Breakfast Club, we contemplate pies with mountains of whipped cream and a busboy with piercings and bright-red lips tattooed on his neck.

ALONG THE WAY

Portal Tour the Faraway Ranch House at Chiricahua National Monument, www.nps.gov/chir

Grab a cup of joe at Hotel Gadsden in Douglas, 520-364-4481, www. hotelgadsden.com

Find a treasure at Finders Keepers Antiques in Bisbee, 520-432-2900, www.fkeepers.com

Commune with Mother Nature in the Ramsey Canyon Preserve, 520-378-2785, www.nature.org

Eat something fresh and healthy at Canela Bistro in Sonoita, 520-455-5873, www. canelabistro.com

Eat something not so healthy (fried chicken) at Sonoita Mercantile, 520- 455-5788

Explore the Patagonia Walking Trail, 888-794-0060, www.patagoniaaz. com

Patagonia

Lowell has a retro feel with its old brick buildings and 1940sand '50s-era cars lining the street. This suburb of Bisbee was once a sizeable mining town. All that's left is a block of Erie Street. The theater marquee advertises Mile High Enterprises. The display cases in the old five-and-dime stare vacantly, and the pool hall, “Pool, Snooker, Libations, est. 1940,” is boarded up.

But a man lifts weights inside the Lowell Gym, “a private club” with its vari-speed belt massager displayed in the window. A karate studio posts a current class schedule. Across the street, a dog tied to a rusting 1950s Studebaker truck stands in the center of a blue plastic wading pool, lapping water.

Signs for Gulf and Harley-Davidson hang from the storefront behind. Jim Danylko leans against the doorframe wearing a sleeveless T-shirt. He tells us the dog’s name is Wateo, and that she’s wolf and coyote. Jim’s former girlfriend, a Navajo, owned the wolf mother.

“She went into heat and the coyote got her,” he said. “I think it had a little dog in it, because I don’t think wolf and coyote will breed. Not sure how that works.”

Jim came to Lowell in 1994 from Tucson. His shop, Arizona Thunder, does motorcycle repairs.

“When I moved here it was totally dead,” he says. “There was a VFW bar on the other side of the street. I can’t think of anything else.”

It helped when The Breakfast Club opened in 2005. “The buildings started getting bought up and people started doing stuff with them.”

Jim and two other residents bought and hung old signs advertising Indian Motorcycles and Greyhound. He found old gas pumps inside the building and put them out front.

“That Texaco sign was already up,” he says, gesturing across the street. “We took from pictures and tried to find the right ones. We just kinda put the stuff back out.” Back on the road, we head out State Route 80, passing a roadside shrine and a defunct motel flying a pirate flag. A string of fat cottonwoods lining the San Pedro River marks our approach to Sierra Vista. We pass the Buena Performing Arts Center, advertising country music night, and the world’s first McDonald’s drive-through, originally built in 1975 to serve soldiers from Fort Huachuca who couldn’t enter stores wearing fatigues. Then we head south on State Route 92 to spend the night in Hereford.

The next morning, we head to Coronado National Memorial, which is thick with grasses and blanketed with wildflowers. Pausing at Montezuma Pass, with its sweeping views of the “Devil’s Highway,” we brave the bumpy gravel road descending into the San Rafael Valley.

This is the landscape that author Jim Harrison once called “preposterously beautiful,” with oaks and yuccas dotting a sea of tall grasses blowing in waves, and thunderheads, like drifts of whipped cream, piling up overhead.

About 14 miles from Montezuma Pass, we stop at Parker Canyon Lake, taking advantage of the rest facilities and lime-green marina store before continuing on paved State Route 83 for the remaining 28 miles into Sonoita.

Taking a slight detour through Elgin, we tour some of the area’s wineries, arriving at Sonoita Vineyards in time for "Lunch at the Winery." Sonoita, the state's oldest winery, feels the most exciting, with its kitschy wine-themed gift shop.

But the most ambitious tasting room belongs to Kief-Joshua Vineyards, a huge Tuscan affair with travertine floors, granite counters and a glass chandelier. At odds with this setting, winemaker Kief Joshua Manning looks like a college kid, with sideburns and a backward ball cap. He carries a baby wallaby, wrapped in a Cabbage Patch blanket, that sleeps in a crib with a pouch.

Driving into Sonoita, SR 83 is clogged with cars and people headed for the Labor Day Rodeo. Women push strollers. Men in plaid shirts tote toddlers with too-big cowboy hats, while teenage girls in too-short shorts sport Tony Lama boots.

Just 12 miles past, Patagonia feels like another planet. Skeletons sit behind the wheel of a VW bus outside the Dia de los Muertos Museum, the word "truth" is stenciled on the door of the Velvet Elvis Pizza Co., a pig adorns the wall of the Politically Incorrect Gas Station, and what appears to be a private home displays a sign saying "Camel Parts."

Inside the Wagon Wheel Saloon, the namesake wheel dangles a prop plane fashioned from beer cans. We sit at the bar, across from a taxidermied coyote howling in an illuminated shadow box.

Tonight is "Karaoke with Rikki Tikki" and the bar is full.

A muscle-bound man sipping from a saguaro-themed margarita glass and a man in a ball cap drinking Bud Light compete for the attention of a blonde with a shoulder tattoo. There's a woman wearing tie-dye, a timid-looking lady in a scarf and a man in a cowboy hat. A guy wearing a thick gold chain glares at us. The woman next to him empties a packet of sugar into her mouth and washes it down with beer.

"I'm a solo jukebox waiting for someone to push the buttons," Rikki Tikki says with a little eye roll.

A woman sitting alone sings Lost in Love from her seat. The timid-looking woman belts out Bob Dylan. Gold-chain guy takes the microphone, then loses his nerve.

When Rikki sings Amarillo by Morning, cowboyhat guy gets up to two-step with a platinum blonde. Then a man with silver hair and glasses that recall the 1950s sings El Rey in Spanish. People whoop and laugh, and everyone in the joint joins in.

The next morning, we mean to have breakfast at the Ranch House in Sonoita, hoping to meet the waitress who tells dirty jokes to retirees from Green Valley. But the only place serving breakfast is the gas station. The Fuel Stop is out of gas, but we eat pancakes loaded with pine nuts at a table decorated with an inflatable palm. Then, having filled up, we head home.

PRESCOTT TO FLAGSTAFF

By Terry Greene Sterling Photographs by Jacques Barbey

On road trips, my husband, Walt, attaches himself to his iPhone map in order to reach his destination quickly and efficiently. I'm his counterbalance, compelled to stop at historical markers, pie joints, swimming holes, good hikes, detours, and anyplace that invites a snapshot, which is practically every place.

By necessity, we're good compromisers. On this morning, as we swallow waffles in Prescott, I pitch a compromise. We're about to drive up one of Arizona's iconic roads: State Route 89A. It's the road less taken from Prescott to Flagstaff, largely because it snakes over oxygen-depriving Mingus Mountain, slows to a crawl as it meanders through Jerome and Sedona, then zigzags up between the cinnamonand buff-tinted sandstone walls of Oak Creek Canyon to the vanilla-scented edge of the Colorado Plateau. A succession of Native Americans, mountain men, soldiers, traders, miners, prostitutes, ranchers, farmers and midcentury tourists and artists have traveled this road and taken in the changing scenery. But who takes SR 89A now, I wonder. And what do they see?

So I ask Walt: "Wouldn't it be interesting to stop at every scenic-view pullout on the right side of 89A and talk to people?" If we only stop on one side of the road, I reason, we'llsatisfy our disparate road-trip needs. Walt goes for it. He drives. I rubberneck.

"STOP HERE!" I shout after we've been in the car for a few minutes. There's a scenic-view pullout in front of Watson Lake, a large reservoir with gentle cerulean waters that lap at ancient wheat-colored granite rocks hunched by time. Early pioneers swam, picnicked and partied here, but today only Bonnie Pranter is taking in the sights. She's a slender, friendly 65-year-old birder clad in sun-protective clothing. She peers through binoculars in hopes of finding migratory Philaropes. No luck finding the shorebirds today, so she glasses a raptor soaring above us. This tranquil road stop is a birder's paradise, but Pranter slips back into her car and drives off when Steve Veach roars up on his Hog. The 61-year-old veteran has a gray ponytail, goggles atop his head and earphones in his pocket. (He listens to Celtic music via Pandora when he's on the road.) He unhinges a crate strapped securely to the back of the motorcycle and gently pulls out a blue-eyed dachshund named Frankie. He leashes the dog, kisses her, then sets her on the ground and lets her "get her old smells back" near a cluster of sunflowers. The two have logged 14,000 "touring miles" on the bike, but often return to Prescott and this scenic view. Why? "Just to take a look and consider life a little bit."

ODE TO THE ROADS PRESCOTT TO FLAGSTAFF ALONG THE WAY

Prescott

Order a lemon bar at Pangaea Bakery in Prescott, 928-778-2953, www.pan gaeabakery.net

Look through the kaleidoscopes at Nellie Bly in Jerome, 928-634-0255, www.nellieblyscopes.com

Study history at Tuzigoot National Monument, 928-634-5564, www.nps. gov/tuzi

Buy a Grateful Dead album at Ye Ole Hippie Emporium in Old Town Cottonwood, 928-634-1970, www.yeolehippieempo rium.net

Eat a green-chile-and-cheese omelet at the Coffee Pot Restaurant in Sedona, 928-282-6626, www.cof feepotsedona.com

Have a picnic at Grasshopper Point in Oak Creek Canyon, 928-203-7500, www.fs.usda.gov/coconino

Learn something interesting at Museum of Northern Arizona, 928-774- 5213, www.musnaz.org

Flagstaff

 

From Watson Lake, SR 89A gallops through golden grasslands until it zips up Mingus Mountain. As the road winds down toward Jerome, there's an awesome scenic-view pullout that serves as a "break room" for Kevin Carnes, a self-described 57-year-old local artist. He wears paint-spattered work boots. He's holding a cup of Starbuck's coffee. He peers through binoculars trained on a young red-tailed hawk. Driven from its nest, the hawk perches near an old sluice that once carried drinking water from a spring on the mountainside to Jerome, back when it was a successful mining town. Carnes will talk — about how Jerome folks stopped at the drinking-water spring to bathe, about how SR 89A linked once-bustling Jerome to Prescott, about numerous fatal rollover accidents on the curving road, about how he likes to skateboard down SR 89A by himself. He'd talk more, except Roger and Lizzy Harrison from York, England, pile out of their rental car, squinting. They're both in their 60s, retired, and touring the American West. Roger is sunburned. Lizzy surveys the view and deems it a beautiful moonscape, or perhaps southern Spain multiplied by a hundred.

State Route 89A slows to an agonizing crawl and becomes "Main Street" as it winds through Jerome, a mining metropolis that turned into a ghost town before it became an artist colony. Jerome locals have their own secret scenic-view pullout: the “Town Bleachers.” The tiered concrete steps were built in 1933 by the WPA as part of what looks like a retaining wall to keep the hill from caving onto SR 89A. Mark Hemleben, a 5l-year-old artist who's taking in the scenery, paints a lot here. He likes the way the town's ancient buildings on Main Street intersect with Jerome Avenue and frame the view of the sandy valley and plum-hued Sedona rocks in the far distance. Sitting nearby, city worker Wally Coates says he spends his lunch breaks here, just to take in the sights. The most interesting view he's ever seen: a naked octogenarian driving down Main Street on a motorcycle.

“That's an urban legend,” says Hemleben.

“But I saw her,” says Coates.

From Jerome, SR 89A careens us down a mountainside and glides through Verde Valley towns and over the life-giving, cottonwood-lined Verde River before we spot another scenic-view pullout near Dry Creek Road. No one's here, except for the soul of a dead man. He's nameless, but his daughter Melissa erected a wooden cross so that it faced a stunning panorama of red rock spires fringed by distant cornflower-blue mountains. The note Melissa wrote about her father is deteriorating now, but pieces of it remain in a plastic sandwich bag secured by a rock at the base of the cross. Melissa wrote that her father was her best friend, he loved to hike and ski and be outside, and he faced his final hours bravely. She wrote: “He's seen some stunning views, views most people only see on a calendar.”

Reluctantly, SR 89A slows down long enough to pass through gift-shop-lined urban Sedona and then picks up speed as it reaches its most iconic stretch — through Oak Creek Canyon. The road mesmerizes highway travelers with views of the creek's deep emerald pools, and with vistas of piñons and pines impossibly tethered to the craggy beige canyon walls. Side roads lead to campgrounds, inns and hiking paths. But I've promised to stop only at designated scenic-view pullouts on the right side of the road, and I can't find any. Finally, we stop at an undesignated pullout where Kenneth Vernes takes a photo. He's from the Netherlands, where he works for the Department of Agriculture and Economics, and he says SR 89A is famous in the Netherlands. He says: "This is the Wild West."

Shortly before SR 89A winds up into Flagstaff, there's a scenic-view pullout that's hard to beat. Its parking lot accommodates tour buses, and Native Americans sell turquoise and silver jewelry here. The coveted booths are meted out by a strict lottery system, and most vendors come here just a few times a year. It's the luck of the draw, and today there hasn't been much traffic, and few sales. Still, Jerry Anderson, a Navajo vendor who is 53 and once worked for the Environmental Protection Agency, says he likes taking in the view of the tourists taking in the view. They walk along the horse-shoe-shaped overlook and peer down on Oak Creek Canyon and SR 89A itself, which from here looks like a toy train track. Marcus (he would not give his last name) and Randolph Walter, both young professional Germans in their early 30s, stand slack-jawed. Several times, Marcus says the landscape signifies “freedom.” Walter replies: “Distance is much bigger here.” Marcus says a German coworker was so taken with Oak Creek Canyon that he named his daughter Sedona. The highway will travel a few more miles before it ends near Flagstaff, but this marks the end of our scenic-view pullout stops. En route to our car, I pass a park bench with a view, dedicated to the late landscape architect Fred Guirey, who, in the 1930s, created rest areas along Arizona’s highways. The bench plaque dubs him “Father of Our Roadside Rests.” Thanks, Fred