Rest from Touring

After Tombstone, I lost my desire to play the tourist. There were some ancestral ruins, ghost towns and forts that I thought I would go see, but decided to move on to New Mexico.

 At my last park in Arizona, I had coffee in the morning with the women staying there, and got to know them a little. The men were there too, but they sat at another table. What?!? Don't you think that's a little strange?

I was looking for a campground in my 50%-off book, and found a park that catered to Loners on Wheels - actually owned by them. Since I'm a Loner on Wheels I decided to join the group. My fees were then even less, so it was a very reasonable rate. There were more social activities there. I went to Happy Hour, Lets Eat Out, the weekly trip to Mexico, pot-luck supper and played cards. It was fun to have more contact with people on a daily basis. There is a group of Loners in New England, so maybe I'll meet people who want to caravan.

 

The winds in New Mexico were verrry, verrry, verrry strong. One day I was sure I was going through a Nor'easter, but, instead of snow, it was swirling around sand and dust, and tumble weeds - under the rig, under the car, climbing on top of each other up the fence. The mountains were gone from sight, covered by this brown haze. I pulled in the slider and Skittles and I just rocked back and forth with the rig. When I walked in this, I held my hood down over my face, and looked at the ground right in front of my feet. Sometimes I turned my back to it and walked backwards (just like a blizzard). I should have walked frontwards with my head up, and given my face a skin abrasion treatment. Ah well. I'm sure there will be more opportunities.

When I was at Loners On Wheels, a couple people were talking about Chaco Canyon(?) near the 4 corners - more ancient dwellings. It sounded so exciting. I really wanted to see it, but I expected I would have to wait until some summer trip, 'cause it's cold up there. In the summers it is crowded. I'm thinking of trying to go there - maybe park nearby, and take trips by car to the sites. I hate to be this close and not see it. We'll see!!

The Gunfight at the OK Corral

I spent a day in Tombstone. The Old Courthouse houses a museum of the town, with history of the gunfight at the OK Corral. I was there 43 years ago, but didn't remember anything about the happenings on October 26,1881. I guess I always thought it was clear at the OK Corral as to who were the good guys and who were the bad guys. But not so. It was over pretty quickly (30 seconds?), with the end results of 3 dead and 3 wounded. Wyatt Earp was the only one with no injuries or death. I can hardly lift a glass of wine to my mouth in 30 seconds, let alone fire a gun at people. One thing that bothered me was that they were using their horses as shields. Where was PETA? They should have been johnny-on-the-spot there. One place, I saw a poster looking for the Earp brothers for information about the fight. I also heard that there was a trial for the Earp brothers and Doc Holliday. I guess there are still questions about the fight. I mean, how could anyone tell what happened in what sequence, in 30 seconds, even if there were eye witnesses. I bought a book about Doc Holliday, written by one of his descendants. And we know that family members always get the facts right. So, I'll learn more.

I still love the shoot-em-up stuff. I remember in El Paso a gunfight which lasted 4 minutes resulted in 5 deaths. I got a kick out of the tour guide, who mentioned a man died from lead poisoning - from a 45.
 

At the courthouse, was a short blurb on Nellie Cashman. I started reading it and thought, "I know this woman." Nellie came from Ireland, and found her niche in the mining camps. She mined, but also cooked, provided boarding, and developed other small businesses as they were needed. She established a restaurant in Tombstone. She followed the gold rush to Alaska, and, again, was able to develop businesses to service the miners, as well as mine her own claim. One story is told that many miners were dying of scurvy. Nellie organized a group to get fruit (mostly limes?) to the miners. She also developed schools, hospitals, etc in the areas she mined. In 2006 Nellie was inducted into the Alaska Mining Hall of Fame. I've run into stories of Nellie in many places I've toured. In Seward, Alaska we ate at Nellie's Roadhouse, and I bought a book about the woman. I've always told people it's okay if I read a book I've already read, or take a tour I've already taken, because I can never remember things, so it's all new again.  ...But this time, the old memory actually worked. Of course I had to look up the town of the cafe and a few other things.

 
I toured Tombstone, and went to Boot Hill. I didn't see any gunfights, since they were all inside buildings and cost money. I guess on the weekends they shoot each other on the streets. But browsing Boot Hill confirmed life was violent. A lot of graves were unknown, but there has been research of town and family records, so a number are identified. People would get shot for ridiculous reasons. Two guys fought over whether you should drive the cattle fast or slow. One lost. Another two guys argued over the fastest way to draw. Again, one lost. Other reasons included mine claims, women, men, the color of your shirt, etc. I thought there was a gravestone on Boot Hill which said "He died with his boots on," but I guess not. A little folklore that was untrue, or I made it up.

 

 

Frank Leslie killed Killeen and then married his widow.

 

I had lunch at Big Nose Kate's. That was lots of fun. They had entertainment, staff in costume (as was most of Tombstone), and good food. Big Nosed Kate was Doc Holliday's girlfriend. Her nose was not big in size, but always shoved into other people's business.

Riding the Rails

I haven't always had good internet service. The last park I was in said you have wifi service from your site, but the only time I wasn't kicked off again and again was between 12AM and 6AM. Today I bought a mifi. That's what I'm using now. I have wanted a mifi for years, but I couldn't get my questions answered. I wanted to know if I got a mifi, could I cancel my cable internet. That would make the additional cost reasonable. I did finally try a Verizon mifi, which I couldn't get to work at all at my home. Then they wanted to charge me $200 for the time I took trying to get it to work. Did they think I would just accept that?

At this park you pay an outside service for internet. For a week it would have cost me $10. That convinced me to get the mifi. The people online and at the store say that I can get service at home with my current microcell, which boosts the service from the cell tower. And so...it shouldn't cost me much more than I pay now.

 So, I've been busy. Sedona is a very pretty area - red rock, beautiful sunsets, many scenic roads and views. I went to a quilt show, went hiking, checked out the rocks shaped like animals or objects, drove some very scenic roads - again listening to Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash and The Who (Tommy), had my car jumped twice, bought a new battery, got my hair cut, bought a new jacket to replace my very most favorite jacket, which is pretty much the only jacket I've used for the last 4 years and left somewhere (boo hoo), read 8 books, and painted my car, which somehow got scrapes on it from cutting the corner too close.

Verde River at bottom of canyon

Turtle

But the most fun I had, was riding the train through the Verde Canyon. I was in the coach class, so no service or free food, but we had our own outdoor car, and I stayed out there the whole ride. We had a guide/conductor with us to tell us some of the history and point out interesting rocks, caves and crevasses. The railroad was built to carry copper from the mines. It went all the way to Jerome. Currently it carries freight on one run and passengers on the other. We passed by caves with charred roofs which indicated cooking fires. Again these cliff dwellings date back to 1100-1400AD. We passed a number of rocks that the guide pointed out - the Budweiser frogs(?), a turtle, the Presidents' range, etc. The Presidents' range was funny. First you saw a natural rock sculpture of Lincoln, and then on the other side of the crevasse, one of Nixon. His nose was pictured exactly as a cartoon sketch of him. I got very good at picturing/imagining/seeing all kinds of shapes in the rocks - dinosaurs, birds, bull, cowboy hat, and many more. When we started, we were high up in the canyon, and then we continued` to go lower. Toward the end we were close to the river, and beside  the flood plain. The trip ended at Perkinsville, which was actually the Perkins ranch, still operating with cattle and sheep. Then the locomotive moved up from the back to the front, and we saw the other side coming back. All the way, it looked like rocks were going to fall off the sides of the canyon any minute, and I guess they do frequently. Before the trip, maintenance takes a run to remove the fallen rocks from the rails. The guide said if he jumped off, we should too. What a beautiful ride! The guide/conductor was great, and so were my fellow passengers.

I went back to Jerome again. I love this town/ art colony/ ghost town. It is so picturesque and unique, climbing up Cleopatra Hill. I visited the museum, which is housed in the former Douglas Mansion. The town was named after Eugene Jerome. I found out he was a cousin to Jenny Jerome, who married Randolph Churchill, and mothered Winston. I read the biography Jenny years ago, and loved it.


In its heyday, when the mines were at their busiest, Jerome's population grew to 15,000. Then when the mines were closed down, population fell to less than 100, and now is at approximately 500. Jerome's history talks a lot about fire. One building was destroyed by fire 3 years in a row. They also had to worry about buildings sliding down the hill, or some of it. One building that did slide was the jail. But, they didn't lose any prisoners, and the building stayed intact, so all they had to do was change the address. I suppose that's all they'd have to do, even if they did lose prisoners.


The weather is not in the 80s; more like the 50s-60s. I had planned to leave my last home and go northeast, but when I checked the weather forecast, it said days in the 30s and nights in the single digits, so I headed southeast. The days are beautiful, but nights this week are in the mid-20s, so I'm not connecting my water this week. I'll use the water tank and pump. Snow was on the ground when I left my last home, and it was beautiful. I drove through snow for about 2 hours, and it stopped 2 miles before I got off. Well planned, I thought.

Tomorrow, I hit Tombstone, and the OK Corral.

NOT the Land of Montezuma!!!!

I have been busy checking out more ruins of Native Americans. I'm very impressed by the knowledge and use of resources way back when. I remember when I was touring Egypt, and couldn't believe the famous structures which were erected thousands of years ago. The knowledge existed thousands of years ago. I remember our guide (our own Egyptologist) talking about the burning (48BC) of the famed library in Alexandria. This library's mission was to collect and store all of the knowledge of the world. If it hadn't burned, and lost all that knowledge, how further along would our civilization be? It's too bad some of the knowledge from way back then didn't include fire suppression.

I visited Montezuma's Castle, Montezuma's well, a pithouse near the well, and Tuzigoot. Montezuma actually lived hundreds of years after these structures were built, but early white settlers connected these structures to the Aztecs, not knowing better, and the names stuck. I'm sure the Native Americans who built them and continually revisited them, called the structures something else.

 Montezuma's castle is a 5-story, 20 room cliff dwelling. It is amazingly well-preserved. Close by is another cliff dwelling, Castle A, which was even larger - 6 stories, 45 rooms. It is badly deteriorated, and damaged - again by fire. The Park Service took over the care of M's Castle, and stopped the vandalism and removal of relics from the castle. They still allowed people to climb the ladders and view the different rooms. That was stopped in the 1930s, in fear of the danger to the tourists. I would think so!! It stands in a cliff recess, 100 feet from the valley!! It is thought these structures were built in the 1100s and added onto into the 1400s. In the 1400s the majority of these inhabitants moved on. Very close is the Beaver Creek, which was raging when I was there, following a few days of rain. So it was just a hop, skip and a jump - a very big jump - to get to the water.

M's Well is amazing. You drive through the dry, arid desert, and turn off to see the well, walk up a short path, and look down at this pool of water with vegetation growing around it. It was formed by a massive cavern collapsing. It is fed by springs that keep on going - 1.5 million gallons per day from 120 feet beneath the surface. The water flows through limestone and is saturated with carbon dioxide. No fish can live in the well, but there are 5 species of life which live here and nowhere else on Earth. Pretty impressive, isn't it??!! This water was used by Native Americans to irrigate their fields and crops. There are cliff dwellings built into the side of the well, with a beautiful view out the front door, but don't walk in your sleep! I think it was 55 feet down to the first floor and who knows how far down from there.

Supported by Arizona sycamore

 

And, of course, the ruins at Tuzigoot were also pretty impressive. Driving up, I saw this structure at the top of the hills, and said, "That can't be..." but it was. Quite large, it also was built 1100-1400s, by those who farmed the area. It sits 120 feet above the Verde Valley, and had 77 ground floor rooms, some of which were covered by another room. For the first 100 years it was estimated that 50-100 people lived there. Then its population kept doubling. One of the best things, I thought, about Tuzigoot was that it was excavated in the 1930s by people out of work. I think it was 100 people who were hired by the Civil Works Administration. I like to see my tax money spent in this way.

This area was also a major center of strip mining - mostly copper. The area produced more than a billion dollars in copper, gold and silver. When the winds blew, the copper dust would rise and coat everything. Companies doing the mining had to bring in dirt to cover the land and vegetation to keep it there. I went back to Jerome, a mining town which had become a ghost town with some interesting characters lingering on, and is now a tourist attraction. When Penelope and I worked around the country we visited Jerome. I loved it. One man - I don't remember who he was - brought us to a woman's house which had a beautiful floor to ceiling fireplace, made from stones and other things people had sent her from all over the world. Later we were playing pool at the saloon, when the owner asked where we were staying. We told him in the car parked in back of his saloon. He let us stay at the saloon/hotel free, as long as we cleaned the room and changed the sheets in the morning. We used lots of hot water that night. Some parts of the town looked familiar, but I couldn't find that saloon. Of course, that was 43 years ago. Things change. Jerome is pegged as a town "a mile high" (had snow on the ground), and built into the mountain with windy, windy roads up, and houses built on poles in the back, where you don't want to step off the deck.