Copper Corridor

Nov 20/17  Weather 86 low 50.  Everyday sunshine!
 We have just been vegetating(and it feels soooo good) at Catalina State Park.  It is so peaceful here and the views are so great we just sit outside and read or listen to music or walk or find mindless other things to do.  We are staying 8 days and only went for one ride.  It was a great R & R place to camp. 

view from Copper Corridor

Motoring up to Globe (Apache call it the Place of Metal) takes you through old mining area and even some current mining in Winkleman.  This ride is called the Copper Corridor Scenic Byway.

Globe

Globe has seen some better days but has some cool old signs in the historic downtown and we found a wonder cafe for lunch; The Copper Hen Cafe.  Might have had the best quiche ever.  So you just never know what the ride will bring.

Bet American Pickers would love this sign

State Park Camping

 Nov 17/17 Weather sunny, 85 and nights are cool down to 47.   

sunset in the Catalina mountains

This state park we are staying in (Catalina S. P. in Oro Valley) has a beautiful mountain backdrop, cacti and wildlife and no lights.  At night when the sun goes down it is dark.  Seriously!!!  Pitch Black.  First night we walked to take our trash and we felt almost blinded without a flashlight.  Remember take a light from now on after dark.  One other thing was sitting outside at dusk we could hear in the same spot each night a pack of coyotes howling away.  One would start and then several would join in.  Every night they collected and howled and sometimes we could hear them in the middle of the night.  Definitely no walking after dark!

campground

All the roads are paved and all the sites are paved.  We had water and 50 amp at our site plus it was 145 feet long~  and the next site was not close.  We need to stay at more state parks; we forget how peaceful and beautiful they are..... crazy!
One thing that we could not figure out and we did not ask till just before we left was what are all the holes in the ground about.  Rosey is always fearing snakes.  Well what are the holes??????    Ok thank you Mr. Ranger.  Ground squirrels that are hibernating.   Yeah!!

holes all over

Adventures to tell

Nov 16/17  Weather is warm, warm, warm.  One of the warmest fall's here in Arizona. 

Adventure Before Dementia

Don't you just laugh when you have to take a "double take".   Some people have such a sense of humour.   The first RV is just that.  We spotted this one at the back of the park in Benson.

You have to just wonder what stories these two RV's could tell........... most likely opposite ends of the spectrum.

All the Gear

Now the second one we saw was in Catalina State Park.  It is a "survivalist" machine.  It was an older fellow sitting outside he was also flying a Marine Corp flag.

What a View

Nov 14 - 22/17 Weather hot, every day high 80’s, night high 50’s. 
Quietly parked in Catalina State Park (near Tucson) for the next week.  A good book. A lawn chair.  Doesn’t get any better than this. 

Our site looks like a postcard😊

Tombstone and the Wild, Wild West

Nov 12/17  Weather 86 high today, low 51.  Local news tells us it is 10 degrees warmer than normal.   Last time we stayed in Benson it was February about 5 years ago and we remember it being "dang cold".  Not this time:)

Not a horse, not a motorcycle but definitely a "cool" ride

On our way to Bisbee the other day we stopped briefly in Tombstone but not longing enough to fill our cup.  Ah shucks we just had to get on back there for Sunday theatrics.

Shootout after 10 paces

wake up pardner

There is a Tombstone Historical Society that puts on free shows on main street for most of the afternoon and boy do they have fun.  Did you know you really can grow up and be a cowboy?  Even after you retire from your real job!  Haha.

all the ladies like the Sheriff

Spent a few hours walking the boardwalk on main street then hanging out in a saloon for some more fun.  Everyone is a kid nowadays in Tombstone.

at the local Saloon

Caving a Recreational Pastime

Nov 10/17  Weather  sunny, 82 low 50.  Not far out of Benson maybe 10 miles is quite a State Park. 

walkways through the caverns

Today we are going to do something that neither one of us is too keen on.  Caving, Potholing, Spelunking.  No not really but that is a recreational pastime that people do.  They look for underground holes, caves, rooms.  Billy and Rosey wait till it is big and we can walk into it.   We are visiting the Kartchner Caverns State Park where we will go underground to see preserved cave bacon, helictites, soda straws, stalactites, stalagmites and brushite moonmilk.  Well if you say so!!!!!  Taking the walk down under with a ranger it will all be explained to us in detail.  Words we never knew....  and the meanings.  All your belongings have to be left in a locker.

soda straws, some 20 feet long

You don't have to worry about feeling claustrophobic the two cave rooms we were in were huge, one was 2/3 the size of a football field.   As you enter into a series of tunnels it is shut off between each area with refrigerator type doors to seal in the humidity and moisture and seal out the everyday bacteria and contaminants.  In the final tunnel before entering the caverns you will actually be misted off and several warnings that you do not touch the rock formations, do not leave your contaminant behind as these speleothems (cave deposits) are still growing~~~~ Wow.

The Big Room

No bags, purses, cell phones, no cameras, no picture taking(all these pics are downloaded from the net) and very little lighting inside but the walkways are excellent and the view is spectacular.  Enjoy Nature at its wildest.  The two cavers who found this rare double cavern crawled in through a sinkhole and with many many trips inside  continued to find more and more over time while keeping it secret for 14 years!  Their fear was how to preserve it.  Their find lives on as an Arizona State Park and very well preserved.

kubla khan

 bacon formations

Not sure how many caves we will visit in the future but definitely feeling glad that we went in to see this display.  Driving up you see the hill not aware that 260 feet below is 50,000 years of limestone cave deposits and its still growing - dripping everywhere extending the formations and creating new ones. 

under that hill are the caverns!!!!  well hidden

Quirky Town voted in by AARP

Nov 9/17  Weather warm/sunny high of 84/ low 49.

tunnel just before you get into Bisbee

About 50 miles south of Benson is a "quirky" little town called Bisbee.  In 1880 it was founded as a copper, gold and silver mining town.  The population swelled with miners and spin off work such as bars and brothels and even opium dens.  Understandably when the men were down in the mines all day with just a mule and their pick axe.......  coming back up to daylight there would be a bit of pent of energy. 

Bisbee

The town burnt down just about every two years and kept being rebuilt till the current town you see is from 1910.  When wood structures adjoining each other were no longer allowed.  The houses and buildings of the town are built on the side of the mountain and all the mining was within a block of downtown.

main street in Bisbee

Old Bisbee is a walkable and compact town since it was built before the automobile and layered on the hills.  After the collapse of the Copper Queen Mine - like many ghost mining towns  Bisbee became a destination in the 1960s for artists and persons of the counter culture.

cool ride

Oddly AARP magazine voted it runner up for the Quirkiest Town in the USA.    The downtown is plentiful of antique stores, cafes, restaurants, thrift shops and funky small little stores.  You never know what you will find.   We spent time at the museum to feel the history of the town and then set out on foot for a couple of hours.  Window shopping, snooping in the thrift shops, and then stopping for a homemade lunch at a small cafe.  If you have been to Jerome, you will understand the feel of Bisbee.   The towns are the same but different.  Both cool and unique; and definitely artsy and funky.  And as the retirement magazine voted "quirky" in a good way.

graffiti on Brewery Row

the fly has a big history here - when the town was thriving with over crowding and  no sewers

An RV Resort and an Observatory

Nov 7 to 14/17  Benson, Arizona .....Weather is sunny and warm.  80's plus for the next week (even 86 one day) low 50's.  Open those windows, in the desert you don't need the A/C;  when the sun goes down it cools right off.  Perfect weather. 

observatory at Butterfield RV

We are going to hang out for a week here since the weather is so nice.  We stopped before in the middle of winter and it was a bit chilly at night almost freezing since the elevation is over 3500 feet.   
There is the most unique campground here.  Butterfield RV Resort; it just happens to have an Observatory on site with 2 resident astronomers.  Free nightly shows.  Really ???    Now that is a feature you don't see often; we can say this is the only place in the US or Canada we have seen a park with an onsite Observatory.  Pretty Cool.

Butterfield RV Resort

The Catwalk

Nov 5/17  Weather 71/41 sunny and breezy.  get the leathers on and it will feel good.

It is a bit of a drive out to The Catwalk from Silver City, about 75 miles but we have nothing but time and a motorcycle!   This morning we were up early since the time fell back 1 hour last night.  I made a picnic lunch since most of the destinations in this area have very little to offer for lunch.  Last time we got caught with a bottle of water and a bag of Frito Scoops.  The ride takes us North West to a small town of Glenwood.  On the way there is nothing.  Nope.  Nothing.  hahaha getting used to that.  We always fill our bike up with fuel before leaving.  Good thing.

only bikers on the trail

the catwalk is quite sturdy

So yes you drive about 75 miles and then hike for a couple of miles in and out of the canyon on what is called "the catwalk."  Then a picnic lunch which was yummy and then back on the bike to ride back to Silver City.  But you know it was actually worth the day.  It is a day of history in the geological foundations of southwest New Mexico that draws you back to the mining in the early 1800's.  The result of cataclysmic volcanic actions, the area now offers a picnic spot next to Whitewater Creek, and a mile trail along steel catwalks that replace the original wooden stilted catwalks.  The town grew up around a mill with 13 claims about 4 miles upstream.

checking out the walls

on the other side of the canyon

The mill could not be built closer to the mines because of the rough, narrow canyon.  So workers constructed a 3 mile pipeline to provide water supply to the mill and town.  The pipeline hung on the canyon walls.  Today you can follow the exact route via the new Catwalk.  The newly constructed walkway cost $14 million just as couple of years ago.  The hike was very easy and quite gave you some beautiful views of the canyon.  Can you imagine the work to put in the wooden catwalk back in 1893???

catwalk suspended on walls of canyon

Geronimo Trail Scenic Byway

Nov 3/17  Weather high 74/low 41.  Spectacular Fall Day.    It was one of those perfect riding days.  The colours.  The smells.  The sun.  A ride to a neat little village for  lunch and back with beautiful views around each corner.   It is the essence of what makes us so happy to be snooping around. 

Geronimo Trail

The Geronimo Trail honors the great Chiricahua Apache Warrior, Geronimo, who was born west of here in today’s Gila Wilderness.   His great grandson (a medicine man) honored a plaque marking his birthplace near the Gila Cliff Dwellings.  Interestingly enough  the great grandsons name is Harlyn Geronimo.  Last name Geronimo!!!   While riding the scenic byway you could look up and imagine the landscape with Apaches on horseback watching us make our way along the route which is unspoiled—quiet, pristine, and teeming with wildlife and now the fall bringing out the luminous gold leaf Cottonwoods.

fall colours in a gulch along Geronimo's trail

From the Jornada del Muerto (Journey of the Dead Man)—the roughest and deadliest part of the historic Camino Real, which served as the main route north between Mexico City and Santa Fe—the Byway rises to more than 8,200 feet in the Black Range Mountains.
Emory Pass Vista in the Black Range Scenic Area reveals a magnificent view to the east for more than 40 miles.

View from top of Emory Pass

Going East you will descend into two ghost mining towns that once had up to 9,000 people living in the area.

Hillsboro General Store Cafe

Now Hillsboro has less than 150.  We found a very old General Store that is decorated in the local antiques and has a small cafe with all the old time accents.   There is a tiny little old post office from the 1800's which still serves the population.

Hillsboro Post Office

Our ride back to Silver City on the same route was just as great; odd how it always looks different going the opposite direction :)  Silver City is the perfect spot to explore all of this area.  Glad we found our way here.

Serious Strip Mining

Nov 1/17  Weather 70, 40, sunny. 

Santa Rita/Chino Strip Mine

300 ton mining trucks - look like ants in the roads

Little did we know that this area is huge mining country.  With the name Silver City we assumed there would be some old ghost mines but we were so wrong.  There is a mining scenic tour of 16 different mines in close proximity.  The Santa Rita/Chino Open Pit Copper Mine is the 3rd largest in the World!
The southern New Mexico mining town of Santa Rita no longer exists, even as a ghost town, except in the memories of those who lived there.
The ground beneath Santa Rita has been blasted, shoveled and trucked away over the last century to feed the world’s demand for copper, leaving a hole a two miles wide and 1,500 feet deep.   It is so large it can be seen from outer space. 
Since the mid 1800's the Apaches, Spaniards, Mexicans and now Americans have all obtained native copper and copper ore from this site.  There are silver, gold, zinc, copper and iron ore mines here.  

aerial shot of the mine

In the campground there are maybe half a dozen of us (siteseeing) and the rest of the sites are all miners.  The fellow camped next to us is here for 17 months fixing equipment while the company is opening up a gold mine that was previously closed.  His company is from Arizona and he has been all over the world - Indonesia, Africa, Brazil and now here.  He leaves everyday at 4 am and comes back about 6 pm, pretty dirty!  He loves his work, he has long days for several in a row then he will be off for days..... then back to the grind again.  Sounds like it pays real well and he had only good things to say about his profession.

trucks are over 300 tons and dwarf a regular size pickup

Trail of the Mountain Spirits & Gila Cliff Dwellings

Oct 31/17 Weather sunny, high 60's to 70 for the next week so we are destined to get to Silver City, New Mexico; elevation is just under 6000 feet.  With the warm autumn season we will not have frost at night and fairly nice riding weather during the day.   Leaving interstate 10 the road is quite good for a motorhome (north US180) and about an hour later we arrived at Silver City KOA.

our map for the ride

the byway is back and forth; sensational motorcycle road

Our main reason to camp here was to ride out to the Gila Cliff Dwellings.  These interlinked cave dwellings were built by ancient Puebloan people in the cliff alcoves between 1275 and 1300 .  Archeologists have identified 46 rooms which they believe housed up to 15 families.   Plan on 6 to 8 hours on The Trail of the Mountain Spirits Scenic Byway.  It crosses six climatic zones and a broad swath of the Old West territory made famous by the daring exploits of Native Americans, Buffalo Soldiers, frontier families and scurrilous outlaws (Billy the Kid). 

the dwellings from a distance on the hike up

think about how they built the inside structures into the cliffs

walking inside the rooms

From the trail head station it is a mile hike with some steep rock climbing.  Instead of hiking boots we had our motorcycle boots and that was a good thing as it is a bit rocky and rough.  We saw a few little lizards and a snake (eek!!!) on the trail.

this little guy blends right into the rock

You can walk into several of the cave dwellings and ponder how these ancient people built these rooms and structures with no tools.  Hard to imagine life almost 800 years ago here.  

Billy climbing down the ladder from the dwellings

Taking a picnic lunch would be a smart thing.... but on our Harley we had a couple bottles of water and a bag of Frito Scoops!!!   When I put the chips in our backpack Billy was laughing at me; but he was glad we had them.  There is no place to eat out there!!!    The ride back gave us time to think about how fascinating the ancient people of  the West were.  Did you know the Mogollon - early Puebloan's were a very small people.  The men were 5 feet at the most and the woman were 4' to 4' 5".  Obviously small but "mighty".   They are known for their unique pottery style  - Mimbres black and white. 

Mimbres pottery