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

Mimosa Time?

south along interstate  25

Oct 29 & 30/17  Weather is so nice we thought lets stay a couple of days in Las Cruces.  78 high, low 44 then 80 high, low 47.  When you are located in Albuquerque it is pretty much a straight shot south on I25 to Las Cruces.  Easy 240 mile day.  Oh yes much more our style.  Not much along the way but we noticed it was the best leaf peeping day we had on the road this fall.  Kind of odd it is in New Mexico; that would not be the place you would expect.   The yellows and golds were effervescent!

golden bronze tree at the entrance to this ranch in New Mexico

Hacienda RV resort is a nice place to stay and it has a close proximity to Old Mesilla Village where the restaurants are great.  We unloaded the Harley and went for a ride out into the countryside through pecan orchards; on the way back we stopped at St. Clair Winery & Bistro.

St. Clair Winery & Bistro in Las Cruces

Billy just liked the name since we lived on Lake St. Clair for years.  As it turns out it was a fantastic lunch and we left with a bottle of Mimosa!!!  Didn't know you could get it bottled and we thought this will be great for brunch one day soon.

Mimosa from St. Clair Winery

Winnnnnnddddyyyy

Oct 26/17 Weather high of 78 today but wind is on the way, by late today gusts could be up to 50 mph. The night is bringing cold down to 34 by morning. Ugh!  That will not be fun.  Across Oklahoma we kept thinking what reason is there to stay, couldn't find one so Billy decided a big day behind the wheel would get us across the state.  380 miles later with a strong front wind most of the day turned into a bit of a nightmare the last 30 miles. We stopped for diesel fuel before getting to our Elk City KOA campground.  It was actually wicked.   We saw a poor RV fellow on the side of the road with half of his roof flapping in the wind!!! Oh no.   He ended up at our campground and Billy gave him our staple gun to staple what he had left to the roof.  It was an older unit but still sad to see.  Then a brand new Redwood fifth wheel came in with half the underbody dragging behind.  No good things happen in that kind of wind.  We did not put any slides out since you are just asking for toppers to be torn off.  Many campers that night did the same.  Some have no choice to open because they cannot get to their beds or kitchens.  We are good with it closed, its just like a sailboat inside..... all inline living!!!  And we had no damage.

cotton fields in the panhandle of texas

Oct 27 & 28 /17  Weather high of 70 and night 35 in Albuquerque, New Mexico.  We wanted to stop in Amarillo, Texas overnight but no stopping allowed since the night was forecasted to have 11 hours below 29.  Yikes.  Keep going.  That means another long haul day.  Gosh feel like truckers.  453 miles.  I know - really???  Can we make it.  This is unheard of for us.  We belong in the 230 club.  230 miles or off the road at 2:30 pm.  Billy put the coach in high gear and kept on rolling.  Wind died down and it was cruising weather.   There is nothing in the panhandle of Texas.   You can see for miles.   Stopped at one of our regular nice spots in Albuquerque, New Mexico - American RV Park.  When we registered we asked to stay an extra night.   Rosey and Billy need an extra day for R & R.

red, red dirt in the panhandle - talk about flat land you can see forever

Big Shout Out

Oct 25/17   This is a story you have to hear about the owners of the Springfield, Missouri KOA.
In the Fall of 2015 we camped near Charleston, SC at James County RV Park.  Great camping spot.  Our back in lot was kind of a buddy lot to the next lot which was a really friendly younger couple with 2 greyhound dogs.   The dogs really kept this couple moving, one time the lady came back with mud and dog poop smeared allover her legs.   They had take the dogs to the dog park and let them off then realized there was no fencing.   Apparently Greyhounds tend to chase a squirrel or whatever they see till they drop or catch the squirrel which is why they use these dogs in the racing circuits.  Both dogs were rescue from the racing.  The lady kind of went crazy calling and chasing her dogs to come back and get them on a leash.  She did get them but thus the mud and dog poop as she fell along the way!!!  It was hilarious and we had happy hour a few times with the couple.  Super nice people.  Turns out they own the KOA in Springfield, Missouri.
We wrote it in our KOA book and vowed to stop and say hello if we ever went by their campground.   When we checked in we said "do you still have Greyhounds? We camped beside you quite some time ago in Charleston, SC.   These people must meet hundreds if not thousands of campers.   They remembered us!!!  Billy said "well we have been on our way here since then".  Hahaha.  We had a good laugh.
Small World and once again you meet the nicest people living the camping life.

Crossing the MidWest

Oct 24/17  Tuesday the weather was blustery, rainy and cold .... almost freezing at night!!!  32 F.  We stayed overnight in Casey, Illinois at the KOA.  It's just a  small town but to draw visitors they have built some Guinness World Book of Records items such as Wind Chimes, Rocking Chair, Knitting Needles, Crochet Hook, Pitchfork, Golf Tee, Yardstick, Wooden Token, Dutch Wooden Shoes, Mailbox, Pencil and Birdcage.  Well it was so nasty out we put the furnace on and the electric blanket and stayed in where it was toasty warm.

casey, illinois

Oct 25/17 Wednesday the sun came out which was wonderful to travel in and we headed towards St. Louis.  Crossing over the mighty  Mississippi into Missouri we started to hit a fair amount of corner head wind and Billy had to hang on to the steering wheel !!!  The farther west we went the warmer the day became reaching a high of 70.

sunny warm in Springfield, Missouri

It felt great to camp in Springfield, Missouri at the KOA and have our dinner outside on the patio.  It was quite a change from the last two days. Low tonight only 47. 

crossing the Mississippi

Busy Border Crossing

Oct 23/17 Weather ~ Fall is here.  A cold front is coming and today will be rainy, windy and mid 50's.  Low about 47. 

Ambassador Bridge

 We are crossing from Windsor into Detroit and will take the Ambassador Bridge.  On a normal day this is a busy commercial crossing as it takes up to 25% of the trade between Canada and the USA.  Lots of transports.  Today for 10 days the tunnel is closed for maintenance so all the cars are using the Bridge as well.   We waited till about 10 am to cross hoping that the double traffic would be cleared by then.  As we came across we were right the car lanes were empty.  Oddly enough the RV's and Buses have a specific lane in the car lane area.  In the last 7 years crossing we have always been made to use this lane...... but not today.  One guard was waving us to the lane , another was pointing to the left and a third was putting up a big stop hand sign.  Billy was waving back.  Well where am I supposed to go????  They decided that we had to back up and cut across all the lanes to go between a couple of pylons and over to the truck lanes.  Oh great.  Yeah sure, we'll just back up this mini cooper.  Luckily there was no car traffic coming and we could do this.  Pulling up in the truck lanes which was packed - 7 lanes with at least 10 trucks in each lane.  Oh boy!  1 hour later we cleared with no problem and entered the freeway.  Now don't forget I75 is also closed in Detroit for 11 miles so you have to detour out I94 past the airport then catch US23 south to I475 and back onto I75 at Perrysburg.  It pays to check your DOT pages before heading out with a big rig.  Well a few hours later we had put in our 235 miles and it was 3:00 pm; time to stop for the day at the Wapakoneta KOA.  We really like this campground, so convenient and we had enough fun for today.

Wapakoneta KOA

Is it still Summer?

May 10 to October 22/2017  Great Summer in Ontario

Aerial shot of Wildwood RV and Golf Resort

Our snowbird winters are filled with such great RV resorts and coming back to Ontario it can be a challenge to find campgrounds with the same amenities.  Wildwood RV Resort & Golf is one of the nicest places to pull your rig into for the summer months.  Our site again this year was the first one into the park; with a beautiful view of the golf course.  It definitely adds a bit of risk to it though as we have taken a few hits from the golf balls.  When we are away for the day and return Billy's first thought is did we get hit today?  He especially worries about the windows.  We did get a few hits this season but nothing too severe.  It's just a really nice campground.

18th green; our site is just to the right in this picture

As it turned out we left after Thanksgiving and moved to the Farm.  We had some things to take care of and stayed a couple weeks longer than we normally do.  However; Mother Nature blessed us with an usually warm and extended Indian Summer.  I think we got the very last day in before packing up and heading south.  Crops are off.  Yard is fall cleaned.  Family is taken care of ...... And away we go.