You know the old saying: April showers bring May flowers. Well, most of Arizona didn’t get much in the way of showers this April, but since May is finally here, it naturally got us thinking about flowers…the only way we know how.

Did you know that several Arizona highways can bring you into locales named for various types of flora? 

Let’s start with an easy one. State Route 87 passes through the community of Sunflower. You’ll find it about halfway between Payson and Mesa. Farther north on State Route 87 are the neighboring communities of Pine and Strawberry.

Speaking of pine, it’s quite prolific in the northern part of our state. On State Route 260, you will pass by Pinedale, Pinetop and Indian Pine.

Being Arizona, it's no surprise that motorists may see cactus-themed names on their travels. US 191 features a locale south of Stafford called Cactus Flat. And the small community of Cactus Forest lies just south of Florence on State Route 79.

Speaking of Florence, that name itself comes from the Latin florens, meaning blossoming, flourishing.

Lastly, there is Cactus Road, a street that covers 36 miles across the Valley, crossing Loop 303, Loop 101 (twice!), I-17 and State Route 51.

While not a specific genus, you’ll pass through Flower Pot on Interstate 17 near the junction of State Route 169. Further up I-17, you can take a detour on State Route 260 and soon find yourself in the City of Cottonwood. Of course, Cottonwood was named after the various hard to distinguish trees and shrubs that pop up ubiquitously in the Verde Valley.

The historic Route 66 name lives on in the northwestern part of our state. Turn onto State Route 66 from Interstate 40 and pass through the village of Hackberry, which was named for the nearby Hackberry Mine which, in turn, was named after the hackberry tree.

Finally, take a trip on Interstate 8 and visit Dateland, home of the famous date shake.

On this Memorial Day, a special thank you to Adopt a Highway Volunteer program groups – over 400 statewide, who gather at adopted segments during the year to clear litter in remembrance of beloved family members, both human and furry. Expressing honor by serving the community is a choice ADOT understands and appreciates. 

Traveling northbound toward Show Low on US 60, watch for a mile dedicated to Melissa Pomeroy. For the past three years, Melissa’s sign greets motorists at mileposts 334 and 335. Melissa unexpectedly passed in 2014 at the age of 49, but her twin Michelle keeps her sister’s memory alive within their family. Since 2018, Michelle has participated in the Adopt a Highway Volunteer program and organizes cleanups a couple times a year, mostly with family members. 

South of Florence Junction at SR 79 milepost 144, a memorial sign stands at attention to a brave young Marine.

Headed to Payson? The family of Jonathan T. Orcutt adopted a segment to care for on SR 87 at milepost 189 near Fountain Hills in remembrance of their son. Jonathan’s family clears litter along this segment more than three times per year, which is proudly displayed on the Outstanding Volunteer Placard below the recognition sign in the photo. 

Adopt a Highway recognition signs hold a maximum of 40 characters to express the name of the volunteer group, which may include a sentiment and name.

“Sometimes, expressing how you would like the sign to read in 40 letters can be a challenge. Adopt a Highway permit coordinators understand and will gladly assist volunteer group leaders to maximize a memorial sentiment printed on the sign,” said Mary Currie, the Adopt a Highway program manager. 

In Arizona littering is getting worse. If you are interested in caring for a segment of state highway, we welcome civic-minded groups and individuals that are interested in helping to reduce litter in Arizona by gathering as a group to collect litter a few times per year. Please visit the Adopt a Highway website to learn how.

They say the journey is more important than the destination. We don't mean to contradict conventional wisdom, but as we've told you about before, one of the best parts of the state highway system is that it can take you to some pretty nifty destinations. 

And though you will need to go a stone's throw off the highway to get there, one of those places is the Strawberry Schoolhouse, accessible via State Route 87. As its name suggests, this one-room schoolhouse sits in the picturesque community of Strawberry, just north of Pine and about 20 minutes north of Payson. In his book, "Roadside History of Arizona," state historian Marshall Trimble said the Strawberry Valley had been used seasonally by cowboys to graze livestock before the first permanent white settlers arrived in 1877. The community's name came from an abundance of wild strawberries that grew in the area, Trimble writes.

According to the application to put the building on the National Register of Historic Places, public education was nearly nonexistent during Arizona's earliest territorial days. Governor Anson P. K. Safford – the namesake for the town in Graham County – is said to have been mortified that an 1870 census showed 1,923 youth between the age of 6 and 21, but not one public school. He went on something of an one-man crusade for education, making sure the legislature passed a funding mechanism for communities to organize schools.

The 30-foot-by-20-foot edifice was built with a sandstone foundation and ponderosa pine log walls in 1885 to serve the education needs of local children. According to the application, the 10-foot high ceiling was originally made out of cloth before being replaced with a wooden one. The application also says that the furnishings were actually pretty good for a rural schoolhouse in Arizona. Instead of using the customary handmade wooden benches, factory-made desks that would sit two pupils were purchased. It also came with a blackboard large enough to fill a wall, the latest edition of Webster's dictionary, a current globe and even a pump organ.

When it was completed in the fall of 1885, it was the only public building in Strawberry and would sometimes double as a dance hall, church and meeting house for the community.

The school would serve for a little more than 30 years before shutting down in 1916 due to a lack of students. It fell into a state of disrepair as people "borrowed" furniture or other materials, including its windows, door and even the ceiling. In the 1960s, the property owner donated it to the Payson-Pine Chamber of Commerce for preservation. Today it is run as a museum under the auspices of the Pine-Strawberry Archaeological and Historical Society and is billed as the oldest standing schoolhouse in the state.

As we told you about in a previous blog, Strawberry had become connected to the wider world via an automobile-worthy road by 1927, though it would not be until 1959 – right before the schoolhouse was donated – that State Route 87 is officially shown on a map as being routed through Pine and Strawberry. 

So what could be a better excuse for taking a trip along a conveninent state highway than to visit such a historically significant building? 

Arizona’s mountainous terrain is as beautiful to look at as it is to drive through, but keeping dirt from those slopes off roadways can pose a technical challenge.  

That’s one reason the Arizona Department of Transportation has deployed highly sophisticated measuring equipment on embankments across the state.

On a recent trip to State Route 87 between mileposts 224 and 225 south of Payson, ADOT Geologist James Lemmon and Engineer-in-Training Ivan Bystov inspected two examples of this technology. The hill they're working on is part of a decade-old landslide known as the Sunflower Landslide.  

Lemmon and Bystov hiked along a ridge on the east side of the highway toward what looked like a yellow chimney sticking out of the hillside. In fact, the yellow riser is a steel casing to protect the inclinometer pipe and the piezometer equipment inside the well.  

The inclinometer enables scientists like Lemmon and Bystrov to measure the rate of slope movement over time.

“We are trying to see if there is a change or any instability,” said Lemmon, an ADOT Geotechnical Design Section-Bridge Group member.

The information is used to take preventive action if the hill is moving down a slope toward the roadway.  

“We know we must do something to buttress it to keep it from moving,” Lemmon said.

Lemmon said there are about 130 individual inclinometer wells installed at 30 embankment sites around the state. Sunflower Landslide has over 20 active inclinometers that are read on a regular basis. Some are on the roadway surface, many are on the near slopes and several are near the very top of the steep road cutouts and mountain slopes.

The piezometer measures moisture and saturation levels.

"When designing and constructing bridge foundations, we need to know the depth of where the saturated water level is under the surface so construction equipment doesn't sink and disappear into the saturated earth, Lemmon said. "And we design the foundation for a saturated groundwater situation. Those depths to water are measured by the piezometers."

The piezometer Lemmon and Bystrov displayed goes down about 60 feet deep, but Lemmon said there locations on the Sunflower Landslide where they go down nearly 400 feet deep.