Camping in a ghost town

This weekend I crashed a bachelor party for a good buddy who is getting married Oct. 24. He and his brothers and a couple of friends were going to Seneca lake Saturday night. On my way to his fiances bridal shower, I stopped by his place and we got to chatting. He invited me along but I didn't want to crash. Then, at 4:15PM I get a call from my friend, Kirst. Her husband was going with the boys and us two girls were invited. And they were leaving at 4:30.

So I sped home from the shower and ran around like a crazy woman for 15 minutes gathering camping gear, clothes, etc. After leaving Mesa, we had an hour and half drive to the Seneca lake turn off just before the drop in to Salt River Canyon. It had rained just before we arrived and the dirt roads were muddy and slick and it was pitch black. We passed through the reservation and back on to National Forest land and ended up making "camp" amongst a bunch of abandoned buildings. The feeling there was creepy...it truly felt like something out of The Blair Witch Project. I refused to going exploring the houses in the dark. Hey, I'm no dummy...


We settled in for the night and I ended up sleeping between the guys on a tarp we'd spread out on some relatively dry dirt. We kept hearing "sounds" from inside one house...but I'm certain it was just the house settling as the guys had just been in there exploring. (The picture is from the website listed below.)


The next morning the buildings seemed so innocent. The guys had brought "toys"- pit bikes, quads, Jeeps- and we went exploring. I was in a Jeep with no suspension or top. It was wicked fun but today I'm sunburned, sore and bruised from being thrashed about. :)

Anyway, I was curious about the buildings and looked it up on-line. You can find the story and pictures here, but it turns out that a woman had killed her husband in one of the houses. Nice. Leave it us to camp in a "ghost town."

Some pictures of the trip: