Runnin' the Road

The Roadrunner should be my totem...my logo... as I "run the road" as we say in my family.  As I've said before, I come naturally by my wanderlust.  My paternal grandmother would automatically get in the car whenever the door was open.  And my maternal great grandmother would walk to town....5 miles or so....pretty much up until the day she died.  So I've been wandering around here in Arizona on my three day weekends.  Haven't done anything particularly exciting or seen anything worthy of the National Geographic.  I wander simply because....

 

 

As of 2010, the population of Young, Arizona, was 666.  According to the website:  There are no strangers in Young, only welcomed guests.  As you travel through town, prepare to be greeted often by a pleasant wave and a friendly smile.   And it had played a role in the Pleasant Valley War, a cattleman/sheep herder range war, with a bit of bigotry thrown in range war.  
 
Pretty funky place, I gathered.  So after a good cup of my own coffee, I threw the dogs in the car (or rather, they saw the open car door and the devil himself couldn't have kept them out--kinda like me) and set off on State Route 288 for the 50 + mile jaunt.  I knew that some of the road was not paved but no concern.

And it was indeed a beautiful trip, from the desert to the ponderosa pine forest and the snow.

And as you can see, the paving had disappeared by this point.  However, it wasn't too bad, not nearly as bad as the Chaco washboard was 40 years ago.  And my little Subaru Outback was born to this kind of road. 

After a road trip of 50 or so miles and about 2 hours of on and off again road, I was looking forward to poking around in a funky little town, so it was with some eagerness that I spotted the sign.  Saw a few houses....rental cabins....a bar....a few churches...a cemetery.... and 

a rather chilly looking vineyard....the vines, not the people, as I had yet to see a human being.  Then...

Young is a wonderful place to photograph derelict buildings....but otherwise, not too much there there.