Our RV Adventures

Continuing from yesterday . . .

After driving around the narrow and twisty streets of Bisbee and then heading out of town on SR 80, it was hard to miss this really, really big hole in the ground.

This hole is the Lavender Pit, and at 300 acres and 900 feet deep, was one of the largest open pit copper mines in the country. The ‘steps’ you see are 50 feet high by 50 feet wide.

It opened in 1950, and until it closed in 1974, produced over 86 million tons of ore, containing copper, gold, silver, and turquoise.

The turquoise, known as Bisbee Blue, is considered some of the finest and most beautiful in the world.

Then, a couple of miles further down the road, we came to The Shady Dell.  A motel / RV park, The Shady Dell is an adventure in ‘midcentury modernism’.

Besides a few RV sites, the motel units are actually completely refurbished vintage camping trailers. Furnished with Black & White TV’s, period radio programs, books, and magazines, staying here is a trip back to the 1950’s.

You can even stay in a 1950’s cabin cruiser.

And for a quick snack, Dot’s Diner is right at hand. Built in 1957 this diner sat at the corner of Ventura and Topanga Canyon Blvd. in Los Angeles. Then in 1996, it was transported to The Shady Dell on the back of a flatbed truck,

Leaving the 1950’s, we turned south on SR 92 to check out the small border town of Naco, AZ.

Naco is famous in American culture as a boyhood home of Nick Russell. Nick’s father was with the US Border Patrol, and was stationed there several times during the late 50’s and early 60’s. Driving around the small town, Nick was even able to find the remains of one of the houses he lived in.

Naco is also home to one of the oldest golf courses in Arizona, the Turquoise Valley Golf, Restaurant & RV Park. A Passport America park, Turquoise Valley boasts a clubhouse built in the 1930’s and is very popular with snowbirds.

Leaving Naco, we headed toward home by a different route passing thru Sierra Vista, home of the nearby Fort Huachuca Army Post.

Fort Huachuca was established in 1877 and has been deactivated and reactivated several times during its life. It was even a US Air Force base for ONE month in 1951.

After making a mandatory DQ stop, and checking out the RV parking at the local Elk’s Lodge, we headed north on SR 90 to get back on I-10 for the trip home.

On the way, Jan talked to Al & Adrienne to set up dinner tomorrow night at Silver Saddle Steakhouse in Tucson. And then a few minutes later Jan got a call from her friend Linda in Billings, MT. Linda and Jan used to work together at a hospital in Houston, until Linda packed up and moved to Billings. We’ve managed to see her there several times over the last several years, and hope to do it again this summer.

We got home about 6:15 after a long but fun day.

And now for the rest of the story . . .

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Today was another early start, but completely unplanned. About 7:15 am fairground workers started trimming the tall oleanders right behind the coach . . . WITH A CHAINSAW!!!

And to top it off, they apparently put a big dent in one of my bay doors, one of the ones I just had painted last fall.

Double Bummer!

Getting up this morning, it was really nippy, having gotten down to 38 degrees last night. It’s supposed to be a little warmer tonight, but not by much.

Unfortunately, Jan woke up with a migraine, and THE CHAINSAW wasn’t helping things, but she took one of her magic Imitrex pills and by later in the afternoon she was feeling much better.

A little later I made coffee and had half of one of Miss Terry’s cinnamon buns, but Jan wasn’t feeling hungry so I had it all to myself.

Then Nick and I were going to check our battery water levels, but after discovering neither of us had any distilled water, we decided to put it off until tomorrow.

Around 4:30 we all drove into Tucson to meet Al & Adrienne for dinner at Silver Saddle Steakhouse. You’re always worried when you introduce two sets of good friends.

What if they don’t like each other?

But they all seemed to hit if off, and after a great steak dinner, we went back to Al & Adrienne’s to talk some more. They’re very interested to see the work areas that Focal Wood Products built for Nick and Terry’s rig, and are coming over Friday morning to check them out.

Then coming home around 8:30 we detoured by a Fry’s to pick up some things, including distilled water for our batteries tomorrow.

More then . . .

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Thought for the Day:

When a fail-safe system fails, it fails by failing to fail safely.

dsfgsd

First off we have a new Landon photo taken while he was Skyping with his other grandmother in OK.

This morning started really early, (Hey, for me, 7am is EARLY) but at least we had time for coffee. And splitting one of Miss Terry’s fabulous cinnamon buns.

It was really nice outside this morning since the winds had died down, and the light, but steady, rain all night had finally settled the dust. And it looks to be nice for the next several days with highs in the low 70’s and lows in the low 40’s.

Really nice.

About 9am Nick Russell, his wife Terry, and Jan and I headed out to Tombstone, AZ, “The Town Too Tough To Die”, about 55 miles away.

The first 25 took us east on I-10 to Benson where we got on State Road 80, toward Tombstone.

Passing through Benson, we took a loop around the Escapees SKP park located on the outskirts of the town. This park is a co-op park that allows the owners to build structures on their lots next to their RV pads. And some get even more involved.

This owner build his own outdoor western-themed train layout. I told Jan this makes me want to reconsider buying a lot in a park somewhere. If I weren’t RVing fulltime I’d have a big train layout like I did as a kid.

Nearing Tombstone, Nick took us on a tour of an Arizona ghost town called Fairbank. Founded in 1881, it prospered from being the nearest railroad station to the bustling city of Tombstone, one of the largest cities in the western US at the time.

But a combination of floods and droughts gradually killed off the town, although there were a few remaining residents until the 1970’s when the last of the buildings were condemned.

Today the area is owned by the BLM (Bureau of Land Management) and is open to the public.

Leaving Fairbank, it was only a few minutes further down the road to Tombstone. And just about the first thing you see coming into town is Tombstone’s legendary Boot Hill. And it was our first place to stop.

Apparently only about 200 of the 300 graves here are identified, due to some buried without grave markers, and some markers lost. But the ones that remain are very interesting.

Some of the first graves you find are the result of the (in)famous Gunfight at the OK Corral.

Billy Clanton, Tom McLaury, and Frank McLaury were killed in a shootout with Wyatt Earp, his brothers Virgil and Morgan, and Doc Holliday. The two other initial participants, Ike Clanton and Billy Claiborne ran when the shooting started.

The feud between the Earps and the Clanton gang continued for another six months, resulting in the death of Morgan Earp and the severe wounding of Virgil. Finally in April 1882 the Earps left the Arizona Territory for Colorado.

Later, after serving as a film consultant for silent cowboy moves, and also as a deputy sheriff, Wyatt Earp died in January 1929 at the age of 80 in his small apartment in Los Angeles.

On a Trivial Pursuit note, his friend Bat Masterson, died in New York City at his desk at the New York Morning Telegraph newspaper where he was head sports editor. A big change from a gunfighter/lawman in the Old West.

The gallows still stand at the old Cochise County Courthouse, and some days they got a real workout.

In this case, 5 in one day.

It’s good that they clarified they hung these guys ‘legally’, caused this guy was just lynched outright.

And in one of those ‘Oops. Sorry ‘bout that’ moments, this poor soul was done in by mistake.

Oh, well.

After driving around Tombstone, and agreeing with Nick and Terry that the place had been turned into a complete tourist trap, we pressed on to Bisbee, AZ.

Our first stop was lunch at the Bisbee Grille, a place that got great reviews, but Nick wasn’t as enamored of it as we were.

Bisbee is a quaint little town scattered up and down the mountain side, with a lot of neat shops and stores. It has a real artist’s colony feel to it.

This post is starting to run long so I’ll finish up the rest of our trip tomorrow.

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Thought for the Day:

If rebooting fails, hit it with a hammer.

asdf