Echoes of the Southwest

JULY:
I don't know why we picked a road trip to Mobile and Gila Bend in the dead of summer, but we did.  We didn't want to go far and both places are nearby.  We first stopped at the trailer park which was the subject of two stories in our Abandoned Places: Abandoned Memories book.  It had been a couple of years since I have seen the place and it was so different.  The last time there were three trailers standing and swing set with a slide.  This time there was one shell of a trailer standing and a huge pile or rubble.  We did manage to take lots of pictures but it was too hot to sift through the mess and see if there were anything worth taking.



After the trailer park, we went back to the burnt down house.  The house was still there but less of it was standing.  The barn in the back looked even more demolished.  The walls had fallen and were lying on the ground.  All that was left was the skeletal remains.



Of course we couldn't go to Gila Bend without dropping by the aband…

JANUARY:
Sharon and I wanted to take as many road trips we could in 2012.  Our first trip we planned in January was to Kirkland, AZ for a ghost hunt.  The Kirkland Bar and Steakhouse had several stories of apparitions and strange noises.  I had several friends tell me of their paranormal experiences while visiting the place.  We were excited to take the trip and spend the night at this very rustic establishment.  The one strange thing which happened in the middle of the night was that the both of us heard an old-time piano playing.  The sound was coming from the bar area.  There is no piano in the place anywhere.  We also heard other strange noises especially during the nighttime.  We had a good experience there and felt the place warrants a second and more thorough ghost hunt.


Although our focus was going to Kirkland, what we didn't expect was how exciting the road trip to get there was going to be.  We drove through several small towns along the way which had lots of abandoned p…