Arizona rocks!

Monday, March 14, 2011

BENSON, AZ – On our last full day in Benson, we headed east and south to visit the Chiricahua National Monument, known for its amazing rock formations.

As we headed eastward, we had another chance to see the formations we had passed on the way to Benson last week near Dragoon. In the midst of the normal prairie landscape, for about a mile, are the most incredible, enormous rocks piled on one another or spilled across the ground like giant building blocks. Then the terrain resumes its prairie appearance again. It would be great to get a geologist’s explanation for this anomaly.

When we got to Willcox, we turned off the I-10 and headed south, through the town and into the desert beyond. It was another clear, sunny day with a perfect temperature. One could get used to this! We passed several ranches and glimpsed, among the grazing cattle, a few longhorns with their lethal-looking headgear.

The national monument – really a state park – brought us in to hilly country where there were actual trees of considerable height, able to grow in higher elevations where water was more accessible. Apache Indians had long inhabited these areas, and for a period of time tolerated the arrival of European settlers before they began to confront them, under the leadership of Cochise and Geronimo. They surrendered in 1886 and were removed to a distant reservation.

One of the first families to settle here were the Neil and Emma Erickson from Sweden, who built a homestead they called Faraway Ranch. Despite their isolation, they embraced their surroundings and explored them thoroughly, eventually starting up a guest facility to show them off to visitors, especially on horseback. They showed pictures of the area at county fairs and to chambers of commerce to generate interest in the idea of a state park, which was established finally in 1924.

Almost as soon as we got past the entry gate, the road began to rise and the trees became more dense. We stopped at the Visitor Centre to learn a bit more about the area and try to get an idea about the walking trails, succeeding with the first goal. We learned that thousands of years ago the region had been covered with a 2,000-foot layer of volcanic ash that, over time had developed deep vertical cracks. These were eventually sculpted by water, wind and ice into column-like structures, some with huge boulders stacked on top of each other. Grottoes had also been carved out.

Our second goal, to find maps or brochures describing the trails, wasn’t as successful.

So we followed the park map to the first lookout point, parked the truck and ate our lunch before heading out. We changed into our hiking boots, donned our Tilley hats, and loaded our water bottles and a snack into a backpack, which Val offered to carry. We walked over to look at the sign with information about the trails.

There was a choice of a 40-minute walk or a two- to three-hour trek, so we opted for the former so we could head further in to the park afterward to see more. After only a few yards in to the trail, we became confused and went back to see where we were supposed to go. Other hikers said they had been advised to follow the trail counter-clockwise for the short loop, so off we headed again.

It was spectacular. Both of us were armed with cameras, and they were clicking at every turn. Massive boulders were everywhere, carved into incredible shapes, some leaning on others, some teetering on top of bases that were so small it was hard to figure out why they didn’t topple!

On and on we went, awed and fascinated, but wondering, after a while, why we weren’t looping back yet and why we hadn’t seen any signs. When we finally did come across some, it was clear we were not on the 40-minute trail, as we’d been gone over an hour. At this point we had no choice but to carry on, grateful for our water supply and the cool, shady sections of the trail where we could stop and rest.

The path rose to the breathtaking heights (6800 feet) and then descended to the deep valley floor, where it was as forested as any Canadian nature trail, except for the odd yucca plant! After that, we had to make the ascent to the parking lot, which we reached with profound gratitude three hours after leaving it! I was totally wasted by this time, and so thankful Val had the stamina to drive us all the way back to our little trailer, where I collapsed into bed! I wonder if our leg muscles will function tomorrow!

Clean machine

Sunday, March 13, 2011

BENSON, AZ – Aside from my jaunt into town, on my own at the wheel of our big red truck, to attend the church service at St. Raphael in the Valley and pick up today’s paper, we didn’t go anywhere today.

Instead, today was appointed Grand Clean-Up Day for the Zanin trailer. It needed it! After the wind storm in Truth or Consequences, we had dirt in pretty well every nook and cranny of the entire trailer. Val set to work on the outside, scrubbing all four sides, scouring the trim around every window, cleaning all the exterior windows, tidying storage compartments, draining tanks and even cleaning the wheels.

Inside, I wiped black dirt from every surface going, shampooed carpets, cleaned linoleum, polished mirrors and sent enough brown water down the drain to fill our grey water tank to the one-third mark, although Val had just drained it this morning!

Also, it was laundry day, which involved commandeering three of the four KOA machines and a heavy change purse full of quarters. When we get cleaning, we get clean.

The result, by about four in the afternoon, was a great feeling of satisfaction and a clean tidy home on wheels for the next leg of our journey. Plus two fairly pooped Zanins, content to enjoy leftovers for supper and put our feet up for the evening.

Our teamwork serves us well for breaking camp when it’s time to move on. While Val is outside stowing water hoses and electrical cords, turning off the propane tanks, cranking up the stabilizers and stowing chocks and other materials, I’m inside tying down the dining chairs and our two easy chairs, drawing in the two room slides and bracing them with bars, turning off the furnace, fridge, and hot water heater, and making sure nothing is loose.

We’ve written out two checklists with these chores so that we can cross check and be assured nothing has been forgotten. There are so many things to remember, we’d be sure to forget something if we didn’t have them. We’ve seen people driving off with their TV antenna still up, and know that we’d be in the same boat if we didn’t have the lists. And if we had a TV.

I remember a chilling time, early on in our ownership of the trailer, when I tried to bring in the bedroom slide without having removed the bars that brace it into place for traveling. A sickening cracking sound made me stop immediately, but not before wood had splintered around the closet door. Needless to say, that’s something I have never done again. Fortunately Val and his friend Carl were able to repair the damage so you’d never know it happened.

The last item on our list is for me to stand at the back of the trailer while Val touches the brake pedal in the truck, flicks the right turn and left turn signals and the four way flashers, so we know the electrical connections are good and other motorists will know what we are about when we change lanes or make turns or stops on the highway.

There’s a lot to keep track of with the fifth wheel, but it sure is a comfortable way to travel. Having our own kitchen to prepare meals we like, and sleeping in our own bed every night, no matter where we go is as nice as can be. Especially when it’s all shiny and clean!

The scenic route

Saturday, March 12, 2011

BENSON, AZ – Before we set out from the KOA today, we stopped at the office and asked to stay here another two nights. There are so many great spots to visit from this location, we needed more time! The bonus was, we got our seventh night free.

Our destination today was Nogales, a border town that has its twin, Nogales, on the Mexican side. We didn’t have much information about the town, but we were really more interested in the scenic drive that took us there.

We headed west on Interstate 10 to Highway 83 and turned south. It was another beautiful Arizona morning, with fresh air at around 65 degrees and sun, with a few wispy clouds. Ahead of us were rolling hills and, off in the distance, several mountain ranges. At each turn of the road we had another beautiful view.

I’ve already described the kind of terrain and vegetation there is in these parts. Today I went on the internet to find out some of the correct names for them. The paddle-shaped cacti are prickly-pear cacti – some of them are pale green, but they also come in a purple shade that looks like they have been dipped in dye!

The tall cacti that look like people with up-curved arms is saguara. The ball-shaped ones that are low to the ground, with spiky ridges, and sometimes a red flower on top, are barrel cacti. Lots of desert plants have spikes coming up in all directions, like a starburst; most of these are varieties of yucca. The fleshy ones are aloes. Another plant that looks like a cluster of thorny sticks growing straight up out of the ground is called ocotillo. And everywhere, where streams normally flow (most are completely dry right now), are mesquite trees with almost black bark, brambly branches and some pretty serious-looking thorns. Most of these are not very tall, but some can reach the height of the truck. There are so many more plants, like desert broom, sage brush and tumbleweed. The variety is amazing.

We are seeing most of these plants in their winter state, but in a few weeks they will start to bloom! We’ve caught a glimpse of a few flowering trees in people’s gardens, and even daffodils, but so far, no wildflowers of any kind.

We passed a number of ranches today, and caught glimpses of cattle grazing, and sometimes horses. We still haven’t caught sight of a javelina, a pig-like creature with coarse dark hair and tusks that is known to inhabit the Sonoran desert. There are quail and roadrunners, and we hear strange bird calls that have never reached our ears at the feeders in our back yard at home!

The scenic route took us through Sonoita and Patagonia, a couple of very small towns, before we reached Nogales. We passed a depot of some kind for the US Border Patrol, and parked by the building were at least a hundred of the white and green vehicles! And those were the ones that weren’t on the road! Keeping illegals out is a serious business here.

Nogales felt very Mexican, even on the US side of the border, with many signs in Spanish and buildings painted pink or pale orange, some with tiled rooves. It lacked the picturesque qualities of Bisbee, where we were yesterday. It was a working town, and at the southern end of the main drag were the international border buildings. In today’s paper we read that the delay crossing into the US at Nogales has become so lengthy that prosperous Mexicans wanting to do some cross-border shopping have stopped coming. It’s been hard on the economy in the town.

After a quick lunch, we headed back north, forking east at Sonoita to take a different – also scenic – way home. So many times we marveled at the panoramic vistas in front of us, with yellow grasses, rolling hills, rocky outcroppings and lavender-coloured mountains off on the horizon, crowned with a huge sky. It may be boring to read about it over and over, but it sure isn’t to look at it.

Our day closed with a gorgeous Arizona sunset, pink and peach to start with, then orange and fiery red, then deep purple. Amazing.

The Pope and the Screaming Banshee

Friday, March 11, 2011

BENSON, AZ – Today’s field trip was to the mining town of Bisbee, about 50 miles south of Benson and eight miles from the Mexican border. We made a leisurely start, which brought us to the town of St. David at about the right time to catch the bake sale at the local Benedictine monastery.

We knew we’d arrived at the right spot when the enormous cross came into view through the trees. The road in went past a grove of pecan trees, and there were several adobe buildings, and a small gift shop where we stopped first. We picked up a bag of pecans, harvested by the monastery residents.

The lady who served us told us the story of the cross. It’s about 70 feet high, and was donated to the monastery by a man who had set it up in his yard in the nearby town of Sierra Vista. The neighbours complained about the sizable religious symbol, so the man took the case to court. But before he had a ruling, he decided to make the donation.

As chance would have it, on the same day he contacted the monastery, another man also offered a gift. He said he was the last person in his family line, and wanted to pass on a precious heirloom. One of his ancestors had been in the Swiss Guard, and had saved the life of Pope Leopold (we don’t know the circumstances). Apparently the Pope expressed his thanks by giving the ancestor his pectoral cross, which contained a shard of wood from the cross on which Christ was crucified. The current owner of the cross had had it carbon-dated and it was deemed possible that this claim was true.

With both of these offerings coming on the same day, the abbot felt he could hardly refuse either, and now the cross stands as a beautiful landmark, with the precious relic housed in its base. The follow-up to this story was that the ruling about the large cross came in the first man’s favour, and he immediately erected another cross on his lawn, only this one was 80 feet tall!

With our pecans and homemade bread in hand, and some delicious sticky buns in our bellies, we headed on toward Bisbee. The town is nestled into the folds of a valley and up its hillsides, with lots of buildings dating from the late 1800s when the town was founded.

Bisbee has a vibrant artistic community, and as we strolled down Main Street, we could see in the shop windows all manner of pottery, paintings, sculptures, and embroidered clothing, as well as antiques and curiosities. We decided to take the Lavender Jeep Tour of the town, since it promised to show us parts of the town we’d never get to ourselves.

The hype was right. Our intrepid tour guide was Dorothy, a lady of a certain age with a black beret, large glasses and bleached hair. She knew every nook and cranny in the town, and manouvered our purple Jeep up and down the steepest, narrowest streets you could imagine. She had a story about nearly every building! So many were reclaimed from earlier times and repainted in wild combinations of colours, decorated with fences and sculptures and landscaped with cactus and aloe plants. Lots of hippies and artists migrated here when mining activity waned and houses were cheap.

In its heyday, Bisbee produced 8 billion pounds of copper, plus silver, lead, gold, turquoise and zinc. Open-pit mining had carved the hills into terraces and created a huge crater from which the copper had been extracted. It all started when the US Cavalry was looking for Geronimo and camped on a rock outcropping (still in the middle of the town). One of the men spotted a large chunk of what looked like copper, and when it was assayed and found to be of extremely high quality, the rush was on.

Houses popped up on every hillside – some of them were actually acquired by mail order from the Sears Roebuck catalogue, complete with furniture and carpets. One building on Main Street was a multi-level parking spot for horses, which were raised to the second and third floors in an elevator. Another four-storey building, set into the hillside, has ground-level entrances on each of the four floors. Actor John Wayne bought one building and often stayed in Bisbee, where folks would kindly leave him alone.

There are so many staircases in Bisbee that each year they hold “the race of a thousand steps”, where people run up one set after another. Some of the hillside houses are only accessible by steps; no roads go there. The quirkiest name we spotted was The Screaming Banshee Pizza place; we didn’t ask if it had anything to do with the number of hot peppers they use.

Spelunking

Thursday, March 10, 2010

BENSON, AZ – Today we went underground, into the marvelous caverns south of Benson at Kartchner Caverns State Park. It was a fairly short drive from the campground, west on Interstate 10 and then south on Interstate 90, but it was still lovely with the desert landscape and purple hills on the horizon.

The story of the caverns would make a great movie. Two university students go spelunking in the Whetstone Mountains of Arizona and find a sinkhole with an entrance into the cavern. They are so excited and fascinated by what they have found that they keep it a secret for 14 years. In their student days, they bring a third person with them to stand guard in case something happens to them underground, but that person is blindfolded from the time they leave Tucson till they get to the sinkhole. They hide their truck in the brush and crouch behind the bushes if a car goes by, only coming out to the road when the coast is clear.

They know they have found a unique and valuable treasure, so they try to find out whose land they’ve been visiting, and learn it belongs to Mr. James Kartchner, a teacher. They screw up their courage and pay him a visit, and show him slides of what they’ve found under the two ordinary-looking hills on his land. Mr. Kartchner agrees that it’s quite a find, but is not interested in selling his land. Finally, someone puts Mr. Kartchner in touch with the Arizona state government, and after considerable discussion, the land is sold to the government for development.

The two discoverers, Gary Tenen and Randy Tufts, work closely with developers to make the caverns accessible to visitors while protecting its fragility. It takes years for them to create entrances, build pathways inside, erect lighting and prepare the above-ground facilities where the site will be interpreted, all with the greatest care.

In 1999 the ribbon was cut and the caverns became accessible to the public. For our visit today, we were required to leave behind purses, cameras, food (even gum) and any items that could be dropped. On entering, we were misted with water to contain any lint or flakes of skin, and were instructed not to touch anything inside. Great sealed doors with rubber weatherstripping scraped open to let us in to a series of airlocks that keep the moisture in and the dry Arizona atmosphere out. We could feel the humid air seep into our clothing as we stepped in!

The wetness is one of the unique aspects of these caverns, with water that seeps in between cracks of rock, causing stalactites and stalagmites to continue growing. We saw amazing formations inside, some that looked like rippled curtains, others like lumpy columns, and some called “soda straws” because that’s what they looked like! The lighting was controlled by our guide so that only the section we were passing through could be seen; this protected the formations from heat that lights give off, which could unbalance the ecosystem. In one section, needle-like stalactites jutting down from the ceiling were back-lit so you could see sparkling pearls of water at the tip of each one; it was beautiful!
We were fortunate enough to visit, on separate tours, both the Big Room cave and the Throne Room cave; after April the first one is closed to the public because that’s when the bats move back in for the summer. Their guano nourishes some 40 different invertebrates that most of us have never heard of. A lot of scientists are finding out new things from these caverns that they’ve never heard of either.

Between our morning and afternoon tours, we bought lunch at the Bat Cave Café and walked around the beautifully-landscaped grounds, where all kinds of desert plants are growing – and are labeled for people like us who have no idea what they are! There was a walking trail that we followed only for a short distance, as we weren’t quite up to doing the entire 2.5 miles in the noon-day heat.

Since we couldn’t take any pictures inside the caverns, we suggest looking at the website for Arizona State Parks at www.azstateparks.com to get an idea of what we saw.

Saloons, stetsons and six-shooters

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

BENSON, AZ — The legendary town of Tombstone was our destination today, a 20-mile drive from Benson through the dusty desert landscape and a few sleepy towns and villages. There were several RV parks along the way, and as we got to the outskirts of Tombstone itself, we passed a Best Western and a Holiday Inn, so clearly lots of people like to come here. Luckily for us, we are visiting at the beginning of the busy season, so there were other tourists around, but it wasn’t over-crowded. The day was perfect; clear and sunny and not too hot!

The main street through Tombstone is a business street, but already there were buildings, such as the one in which Wyatt Earp lived, and an old rooming house, that harked back to wild west days. Allen Street, the historic part of the town, is cordoned off for pedestrians only, and boasts old wooden storefronts, boardwalks, and a couple of stagecoaches that take visitors for rides up and down the street.

We heard the clink of spurs as a cowboy strolled past us, with his leather vest, gun belt and stetson. Inside the shops, salesladies in long skirts, some with feathered hats, served customers who were looking for souvenirs or admiring artifacts from the old days.

The town got its name, we learned, from Ed Schieffelin, a rough-and-tumble early prospector who roamed into Apache country in 1877 to seek his fortune. His friends told him that all he would find in that dangerous territory was his tombstone, so when he struck it rich, he used that name for his first silver mine. His second was Lucky Cuss, because that’s what his brother called him when, penniless again, he made another attempt and found a new source of the precious metal. Mining was what brought people in and made the town grow and prosper.

Probably the most famous event to take place here was the gunfight at the OK Corral, in 1881, when Wyatt Earp, his brothers Morgan and Virgil and friend Doc Holliday engaged in a shoot-out with the horse-thieving Clanton brothers and the McLaury brothers that lasted a mere 30 seconds and left three dead (the cowboys) and three injured (the lawmen) and only Wyatt unhurt. Supporters of both groups laid the blame on the other, and it’s a point of discussion to this day.

We saw it all unfold before our very eyes at the very spot it first occurred, in a live re-enactment that happens every afternoon at 2! It’s a lot more comfortable for us than for the first witnesses, who were deprived of bleachers and a sun-shade from which to observe the dramatic events.

We ate soup, beans and biscuits for lunch at the Longhorn Restaurant and then visited the Tombstone Heritage Museum, a little off the beaten track, which houses authentic artifacts from the area’s history. We read a letter written in Wyatt Earp’s own hand, and looked at guns, pocket watches, saddles, and oddities from bygone days. The museum owner showed us a glass case where only a day or so earlier someone had lifted a revolver worth about $2,400 to his dismay. Thieves, unfortunately, are not only figures of the past.

The Crystal Palace was one of the local saloons, and inside was the original carved-wood bar, with wooden stools and pressed-tin ceiling where fans quietly turned above the patrons. The serving girls were authentically dressed in revealing costumes and fishnet stockings, and the owner wore a bowler hat.

The town’s newspaper, known as the Tombstone Epitaph, carries original accounts of the testimony by Wyatt Earp and other witnesses of the gunfight in reproductions of the original editions, which we picked up. It was interesting to see the old printing presses and cases where typesetters had to pick letters, one by one, and arrange them in galleys, upside down and backward, for each day’s paper. Did you know that the terms “upper case” for capital letters and “lower case” for small letters come from the fact that these letters were arranged in two sets of cases, one above the other? Val was most edified when I related that to him.

It was a very interesting day, and there are still parts of the town we didn’t get to see — including Boot Hill, where the OK Corral cowboys are buried. I expect we’ll be back again before our stay is over.

Arizona at last!

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

BENSON, AZ — We made it! We’re finally in Arizona, on our 17th day of travel, with a wealth of stories from the trip here, and the promise of many more as we explore this interesting part of the world. Our literature bag is bulging with pamphlets, maps and brochures about things to see and do, and we can hardly wait to start.

We got off to a good start this morning (for some reason I woke up at five o’clock!) after a more peaceful night than we had expected with the heavy winds last evening. Nevertheless, wind was our constant companion today as well, sweeping across the vast, flat plains of southern New Mexico. We followed Interstate 25, heading for Las Cruces, but before getting there, we headed west at Hatch on a state highway, cutting a corner to connect with Interstate 10 west.

Hatch, a tiny little burg, boasts that it is the chile capital of the world. Roadside stands were in abundance, strung with ristras of dried red chiles and trinkets painted with pictures of the long, elongated peppers in red and green. They even have a 12-foot tall Uncle Sam at one corner, with star-spangled top hat and striped pants, holding a big green chile in his hand!

While the scenery today resembled what we had passed before, there were some changes and differences. The ground was still dusty and gravelly, and low shrubs dotted the landscape, but today we passed several places where bright yellow grass rippled in the wind, dense enough to hide the soil beneath it. Spiky plants, from one to three feet high, were everywhere for a mile or two, then nowhere to be seen, and then present again and even bigger in size. These plants send up a tall, thin stem that branches out with dried seed pods at the top — very odd-looking! They look like skinny periscopes, sticking up toward the sky!

The sky was huge again today, swept with a few clouds. At the horizon on either side were mountains in rusty brown and grey. Not long after we crossed the state line, we saw some large farms with trees in orderly rows; we guessed they might be pecan trees, or pistachio trees (although we don’t know what either of these actually look like; we just know they grow around here!). There were also some vineyards, as the terrain here resembles regions of France where wine is produced.

Cochise County is at the southeast corner of Arizona, where we now are, and the most interesting stretch of highway today was at Dragoon, where suddenly the landscape changed to huge rocky formations on either side of the highway. I told Val I almost expected to see cowboys darting among the rocks, chasing Indians to the sounds of ricocheting bullets! Some of the formations were huge round boulders, as big as a car, balanced on top of others. It was spectacular!

We arrived at the Benson KOA at about 1:30, and got quickly settled. It’s always easy when you get a nice, flat site without any trees in the way. From our dining area windows, we can see a wonderful desert landscape with mountains in the distance.

Since today is Shrove Tuesday, I was determined to find a place where we could have our traditional pancake supper. I scanned a couple of local papers we had picked up to see if there was anything happening in town, and there was one Mardi Gras event at a local golf club, but they were advertising New Orleans cuisine, and expecting folks to arrive in costume. I had left my sequined mask and beads at home, so we opted instead to check out the menu at Denny’s, just down the street from the campground. I was not disappointed: breakfast served all day! So I had two enormous pancakes with extra syrup and butter, bacon, and hash browns. And, to assuage my guilt, a side order of fresh fruit! Yum!