Wickenburg, AZ Statues

Yvonne came by this afternoon and took us out to lunch at the Tumbleweed Restaurant in Wickenburg.  It is a small cafe located in a building that used to be part of a plant nursery.  There are two patios and 3-4 small rooms where they serve meals, plus a bar area.  Gerry and I had their special Taco salad with Catalina dressing and it was great.  We ordered the "lighter side" taco and it was more than we could eat.  Yvonne had pork sliders and said they were great also.  

We would like to hang around another day to take advantage of the $1.00 Margarita special during happy hour on Wednesday, but we have to hit the road in the morning.

They had a number of neat signs in the restaurant and this one caught Gerry's fancy due to the cute saying for the wine ad.

After lunch Yvonne took us on a guided tour of downtown Wickenburg.  They have put a lot of effort into making the downtown area interesting and have erected a number of statues that depict events and people from the past who lived in Wickenburg.

 The first statue was by the train station is called "School Teacher with Luggage".  The post on the right side of the statue has a button to press that explains the meaning of the statue.  The statue depicts a young school teacher arriving by train in Wickenburg in the early  1900s seeking to settle in Wickenburg to teach area children and perhaps corral a local cowboy.   The school house was one room and had eight grades in there at one time.  Some of the older students were close to her age and would take off to help with ranching chores and then come back to school to continue their education.

The second statue was called "Owner of the Hassayampa Hotel" and depicted Mrs. Elizabeth Smith, the original owner of the hotel in the late 1800s.

The "Miner Leading his Donkey depicts the early mining activity of the late 1800s culminating with the discovery of the Vulture Mine by Henry Wickenburg in 1863.

The "Cowboy and Dance Hall Girl" statue depicts the evening social activity in early downtown Wickenburg. 

The last photo above is a small bronze piece of a Tarantula on the sidewalk.  It was very real looking and they had others including Gila Monsters, Roadrunners and Rattlesnakes.  The rattlesnake looked so real that they had to put up a sign by it so it wouldn't scare people to death.

There were two other statues that I didn't get a picture of including the Vaquero with Guitar and Jail Tree Felon.  The jail tree felon looked very real from a photo I saw of it.  If we had time, I would go back and get the other two statue photos, however we are leaving in the morning and vehicles over 30ft long are banned from the downtown area near the statues.

I stopped and picked up two geo caches after we got back to the motor home and later we went over to Yvonne's for a very nice dinner and chat with her.  She told us about her trip to London this past summer to see part of the Olympics and also a visit to Ireland.  Sounds like she had a great time on the trip and she has a lot of nice memories.

That was our day, how was yours?