ourney to the Center

We turned off Interstate 17 near Bumblebee, Arizona, and drove through a forest of saguaros, their magnificent arms capped with spring blossoms. The road was paved…for a while. A sign, “26 miles to Crown King. No services,” wasn’t exactly true.

Gene Gilbert is another wintertime nesting North Ranch single who has accumulated all the toys known to man, including our transportation today, his silver Jeep Wrangler with all the bells and whistles. He constantly teases me because I don’t have a global positioning system in my motorhome. I like a little mystery in my life. He often watched the GPS’s progress rather than the road, taking us toward either a ditch or a cliff. But hey, it was taking us to our destination, right? Wrong!

The GPS got lost and turned us back toward I-17. Guys don’t ask directions, but prayer works, and soon I flagged down a road worker who had a comprehensive area map. This kind young man invited us to, “Turn around and follow me.”

Rough Road
The right direction eventually took us on a one-lane winding mountain road with tight switchbacks and pullouts for passing, but signs did announce each mile so we weren’t lost. The desire to keep the tires and axles intact made the going slow except for a short period when Gene tested the theory that the faster you drive on gravel washboard, the smoother the ride. After my hair turned white, he settled into a steady rhythm of teeth-rattling bumps.

At nearly 6,000 feet, we found Crown King nestled in tall pines, rocks, and peace. According to the shopkeeper, “It’s peaceful except on weekends when people descend for three days with ATVs, motorcycles, music and noise, but that’s when we make our living.” I asked her about the little school down the side street. “We have grades one through eight. When they graduate to high school, they go off the hill. We graduated two this year.” The population is 80 to 100 permanent residents, swelling to 200 to 300 when the cabin owners arrive in the summer.

The General Store had the bare necessities along with antiques and souvenirs for those hardy enough to risk the road. The shopkeeper added, “We drive into Prescott or Phoenix once a month for our personal major shopping.”

We sat at the shaded picnic table, rewarding ourselves with a snack and people watching. The gas pump read $3.59 a gallon, a gasping price but not when you consider the tanker comes over the same miserable mileage we did. Gene, an animal lover, talked to a dog the color and nearly the size of an appaloosa. The American flag flew straight out in the cool breeze.

In the Middle
Crown King is the geographical center of Arizona, approximately 100 miles north of Phoenix. It is nearly impossible to throw a dart into an Arizona map and not land on an abandoned mining site or small community. The Crowned King Mine, founded in 1888, was the largest gold mine in the Bradshaw Mountains. A strike at the 500-foot level in early 1899 is believed to be the richest in Arizona history. The story of this whole mining era and those who lived it is told in Crown King and the Southern Bradshaws: A Complete History by Bruce M. Wilson, available at the General Store.

At one end of the street is a tiny church with an arched sign, “The Chapel of the Crowned King.” The original name of the town became Crown King via the post office. This bit of information came from Jann Herbst, a prayer minister who once lived in Kalamazoo, Michigan, about an hour and a half from where I was born. Small world. She gave us a tour of the little church. “We are non-denominational,” she said. “Between 80 and 110 visitors arrive on Sunday, people from as far away as Denmark.”

Jann calls the road to Crown King “God’s Massage” because “it shakes off the stress, worries, and anxieties so you can come across the Miracle Bridge into the peace of Crown King’s majestic trees.” She explained the name of the Miracle Bridge we had crossed: “Sometimes there is no snow on this side but snow on the other side. There are trees on this side, none on the other.”

The church is part of the Bradshaw Mountain Guest Ranch and Conference Center with guest cabins tucked into the mountainside. They have plans for a bigger conference center in the near future.

Local Pride
We passed the Volunteer Fire Department and admired Crown King’s framed history on the saloon walls at the street’s other end. Cindy’s Café was separate from, but in the rear of, the saloon. A resident told us, “Trucks and ATVs are the main form of transportation here.” Gene told her a story of two Arizona soldiers in Iraq. The first one said he was from Crown King. The other, from Tucson, said, “Nobody’s from Crown King.” He replied, “I was born and raised there.” This lady knew immediately who it was. Small world again. A fellow working on a building extension commented, “I was born and raised here, too.” Pride of community.

A father and son zoomed in on an ATV dust cloud. I assumed they were also locals, but they had rented the machine across the street. A tall slender blonde in camouflage clothes and a baseball cap with her ponytail sticking through it looked well within her comfort zone as she mounted an ATV, painted nails and all, and made her way elsewhere.

I’ll drive my RV just about anywhere, and I could get it to Crown King, but I wouldn’t. The road is made for using tow cars but only then if you take your time. I love isolated areas. Well, I found one for sure this time, but regardless of the remarks about the road, it was a wonderful adventure with magnificent scenery and friendly people. It was hard to leave this comfortable find high in the cool Bradshaw Mountains. Maybe that really is a Miracle Bridge. God Bless.

Note to Readers: It has been my privilege to be a columnist for RV Life since 1988, only two years after I started solo full-time RVing. Over the years I’ve taken you from hot tamales to polar bears, from dodging icebergs to paragliding off a mountain. After all this time, I’m finally asking, “What would you like to read about?” I would love to receive an e-mail with your thoughts. Do you prefer reading about places to visit, other RVers and what they are doing, wild and woolly adventures, or “how-to” (scary at best)? Send me an e-mail at Silver-gypsy@earthlink.net