A Cold, A Museum and The Duttons... Again

Thu Mar 3
I caught Dad's cold that he just got over but much worse. Last night I was miserable with a pain in my side that finally went away. We were scheduled to attend the Mesa Temple with the Bramwells today but Gayle had just gotten dental work done and I was in no shape to go so Dad and Dick went alone for a session. I stayed home, painted and rested up to hopefully speed up my recovery.
Fri Mar 4

Ancient Indian Pottery

Model of Original Movie Set (barn and chapel are in far background)

Wells Fargo with Barn and Superstitions in Background



Windmill, Barn and Blacksmith Shop

 

Blacksmith



Elvis Memorial Chapel



Inside Chapel



Buggy and Gallows



Timothy, Amy, Jonathan, Sheila and Dean Dutton

 This morning I went with a fellow Idahoan from our ward, Lois Sedgwick, and Gayle to the flea market and bought a dress, a bracelet and some nice bed sheets. Then Dad and I went to visit the Superstition Mountain Museum on Apache Trail. It is a relatively small museum but has nice displays of ancient Indian culture artifacts, US military firearms and uniforms throughout history, taxidermy examples of desert animals and mining and Old West artifacts and history. Much was also devoted to the legend of the Lost Dutchman's gold. Outside the museum and gift shop were a number of old movie set buildings from the Apacheland Movie Ranch originally located in the town of Gold Canyon just southeast of Apache Junction. Fires had destroyed most of the original site buildings. Dozens of well-known stars appeared in a long list of movies and TV series that were filmed there from the early 60's up to 2004 when the last fire occurred. The most popular building is the Elvis Presley Memorial Chapel, dedicated to him following his death, but there is also the barn (with a live blacksmith selling his work to make a living), gallows and windmill. Elvis filmed the movie "Charro" there in which this chapel can be seen. In the evening we went with our Canadian friends, Peter and Jo Campbell, to the new 20th Anniversary Duttons Show at their theatre in Mesa. They are truly amazing and we had a wonderful time.