Dragoon, Tombstone, and the San Pedro River

Saturday, January 24, 2015

Day 2 of this weekend's adventures! Today, we met up with our friends Mitchell and Alex and headed East to Cochise county for some hiking and letterboxing. All of the locations that we visited are some of the lesser-known about historic spots that the guys have a lot of interest in. We planted letterboxes around each of them, and hope that many people will find them and enjoy getting some information on what happened around these areas!

Curtis has been working on a letterbox series about the different events in the Civil War that took place in Arizona. You can read the summary of what he's learned here. Today, we visited a site near Dragoon, AZ, that is actually one of the better maintained spots. While most of the soldiers that died in these battles were buried in San Francisco, CA, a few Confederate Soldiers were buried here. We also saw ruins from a stagecoach station that once stood here.

Stagecoach Ruins 

Charlotte loved sniffing around here!

After visiting here, we drove to Tombstone for lunch. We ate at the Chuckwagon Eatery in Tombstone, and were very thankful that they are dog friendly! We were able to eat outside, and they gladly brought a bowl of water for Charlotte. It seemed like everyone there was a basset hound lover, and Charlotte loved them all back! If you're ever in Tombstone, check this place out, especially if you have dogs - they're the only dog friendly place in town!

A photo to remember Charlotte's first trip to Tombstone!

After eating, we went to visit the grave of Ed Schieffelin. He was the prospector that discovered silver here in Cochise county, which led to the founding of Tombstone. The grave is to the West of the town, and is actually quite impressive.

Ed Schieffelin's grave

Facing East

Facing Northeast

Facing South - those are the Huachuca Mountains, with Miller and Carr peaks on the far left!

After that, we started heading Southwest to the San Pedro River area. We stopped on the way to visit Brunckow Cabin, which is apparently known as "The Bloodiest Cabin in Arizona History." (I didn't really realize it until I looked it up later - it's really crazy all the places I end up going with these guys!) It also was owned by a miner, and that really interested the guys. And Charlotte. :)

The guys, checking out a mine shaft. 

Mountains in the area!

What's left of Brunckow Cabin

Once we finished there, our last stop was to a trail around the San Pedro River area, near the Charleston ghost town. This was my favorite hike of the day - it was such a beautiful and well maintained trail, and we got to see a lovely sunset around here. As you walk along the trail, there are lots of informational posts that explain what certain ruins are, or what happened in this area in the past.

Petroglyphs!

Charlotte loves being on the trails with us :)

We came across the coolest structure I've seen yet along this trail - Gird's Mill near where Millville used to be. This was like a 3 story fortress, so of course we had to go check it out!

Climbing up Gird's Mill

A closer look at the structure.

Taken from the second level of Gird's Mill!

I loved watching the sun set over the Huachuca Mountains - if you recall, we did a hiking trip last fall in this range. Miller is the furthest peak on the left, and Carr is the next point to the right of that. Click here to read about that adventure!

The San Pedro River

And finally, to end the day, we enjoyed walking across Charleston Bridge and watching a stunning sunset. It was the perfect day to explore Cochise county some more! We finished off this adventure with having steak, rice, and potatoes at Mitch's.

A Visit With Family

Earlier this week, we got a special treat that rarely happens down here: We had family come to visit!! :)

Curtis' mom, Julie, came down to Phoenix, then she and Lydia (Curtis' sister) drove down to spend some time with us in Tucson - and maybe more importantly, meet Charlotte. ;) The weather cooperated and even cooled down a bit, so we were able to show them some a few fun places around Southern Arizona. 

I don't really have great pictures of their visit, Julie is a photographer and has some great pictures, but I just wanted to give a sampling of what I had.

They came down on Monday morning, and after playing with Charlie, we took them to Kartchner Caverns where we took a tour of the Rotunda room and Throne room. Of course we aren't allowed to take pictures, but just know you NEED to visit there anyway! After that, we went a little further Southeast to Tombstone and walked around the graveyard and the town.

A few of these grave markers are what make this place entertaining!

Creative, right?

Of course things like this make me think of Charlotte. I kind of need this sign. :)

Curtis and I slept in "Charlie's room" (aka the living/dining room) and thankfully she did really well sleeping through the night. I got up early to make breakfast and we let her out...then she and Curtis went back to sleep. It was just too cute. :)

On Tuesday, we visited the Sonoran Desert Animal Museum that's West of Tucson. It's one of the top 10 museums in the country. The reason for that is probably because it's a lot more like a zoo than a museum! Curtis and I visited here in our first week of living in Arizona last year, and it was really fun to return.

Walking through the reptile/amphibian/arachnid exhibit. This is probably the only creature that wouldn't scare me out on the trails. ;)

Parrot! Not native to this area, and sadly we'll probably never see him in the wild.

Walking through the "cave" exhibit. Curtis models bat ears for us.

Not only does the museum have exhibits with live animals that are native to the desert, but also a wide sampling of plants. This one is not one that we'd see around, but it looked kind of like a Christmas tree to us.

A must see is the 12:15 show with the gila monster and the rattlesnake! 

This one is a Grand Canyon rattlesnake. 

A gila monster up close. It would be fun to see them in the wild - and with a high speed of 1.5 miles per hour, it's safe to say that we would be perfectly fine!

My dear, silly husband :)

The struggle...

Not many of the animals were active - Curtis and I found it interesting that they were way more active last time, at the same time of day when it was warmer outside. The bighorn sheep happened to be moving around though!

Here we finished with the butterfly and hummingbird areas outside.

The best picture I could get of this active little guy!

Another favorite part of the museum: the garden eels in the aquarium! They worship the large rock and fear the fish. :)

Yes, this crab is in a glass shell - hope he isn't too embarrassed! ;)

And that's all I had - we had a great time visiting and are looking forward to our next visitors, friends or family! It's now becoming the perfect time to visit, in case you need a reason. ;)

A Day Spent in Ghost Towns

 Saturday, April 12, 2014

Today we visited several ghost towns - completely different meanings of the phrase "ghost town", but all somehow earning that title. It's days like this when I feel like a true South-westerner. Driving down quiet hilly highways and bumpy dirt roads, hiking several miles to find an old mining town, seeing a snake and worrying about other wildlife (but comforted by the fact that someone is carrying!), and having a sarsaparilla in an old saloon. I'm so glad I've gotten to experience all these while I'm living here!

Now, for the events of the day: We met up with our friends, Mitch and Roxy, and drove to Cochise County. After picking up letterboxes on the way, we made it to the trailhead for our hike. Destination: Contention, today's first ghost town. There used to be a mining community as well as a train that ran through, now there is nothing. Literally - it was probably the most deserted trail we've ever hiked. 

We first went for a letterbox that was hidden around the area of an old Presidio - which translated basically means Spanish military fort. There were mostly just old foundations and adobe walls scattered around. The fort is dated back to the 1770's! We just walked around a little loop trail and looked at the remnants before going on our way.

The next bit of history that we walked on was where the old railroad tracks used to be, as far back as the 1800's. As I mentioned before, a train used to run from here to Tucson & other places, but when the mining community shut down and the World Wars were going on, they tore up the railroad for the iron, and pictured below is what remains.

We walked quite a ways down this rocky path, until we came upon the San Pedro River. Here we crossed, and on the other side found 2 letterboxes and our ghost town.

Finally, we reached the area where Contention used to be. There are no remains of the buildings that used to stand, but here you can find some pictures and more details on the area.

Below - Much to my delight, the square hole in the rock turned out not to be a giant snake den, but a small, cooled room. :)

Above - the sky was amazing all day! I loved these striped clouds.

After getting all letterboxes, we sat down for a picnic on the "beach" next to the small river. It was so quiet and peaceful, besides some rock throwing of course!

We finally packed up and walked back down the trail to the car. Altogether, today's hike was around 6 miles.

We drove to another nearby ghost town called Fairbanks. It's kind of a little historical village set up, and reminded me of one I used to visit back in Iowa called Usher's Ferry.

It was a quiet area but had quite a few more tourists, (probably because there wasn't a 6 mile hike to see it!) and we only went in one building.

This is the old schoolhouse, we enjoyed trying out the old desks and drawing on the chalk board. :)

Finally, our last stop and ghost town was Tombstone. Unlike the others, people still live in this town, and it is only called a ghost town because there is no longer any mining being done. It's now a Western-themed town (they really play up the movie "Tombstone"!) and you can enjoy all sorts of tourist attractions. Our first visit was to the old county courthouse.

After walking down the old Western street, we finally went for dinner at Big Nose Kate's Saloon. You can always tell what restaurants are good by how many people are there eating, and this place was packed! It was our second time visiting, and it was a great experience. 

Of course it's Curtis' first time going to a saloon as a 21 year old, and since he didn't drive he was able to enjoy a beer. :)

Oh, this was his 16 oz. burger too! :)

We finished the day with one last short hike at sunset. The sky was incredible!

And that was our weekend! :)