Chiricahua National Monument

 Good morning, my friends. It's our last morning in Arizona today. We'll be moving along to New Mexico by this afternoon. First stop is Las Cruces, and weather permitting, we'll make a visit to White Sands National Park while we're there. For now, though, let's talk about yesterday's sight-seeing adventures.

As we drove into Willcox a few days ago, I saw the turn-off onto AZ-186 that would take us to Chiricahua National Monument. It was west of the KOA where we're staying. So, naturally, as we're leaving, I tell Mike to head west and follow the signs. Along we go on our merry way. The mountains to the north were pretty with the combination of sunshine and clouds overhead.

After driving for what seemed like too far without having seen a sign, I looked up the directions. As it turns out, one cannot take the exit to AZ-186 when heading west. It's only an east-bound ramp. Doh!!

Okay, so we get ourselves turned around and backtrack until we see the sign we passed originally. Finally, we were headed in the right direction. (I hate it when that happens.) Off in the distance, we could see snow in the mountains. I believe these are the Sierra Madre.

Many miles later...about 40...we passed through the gates for the national monument.

Right away, we started seeing the interesting rock formations characteristic of this park.

Our first stop was at the visitor center, where I picked up my 3rd refrigerator magnet of the trip. I've yet to find any shot glasses, but I'm always on the hunt.

Inside, we looked over various exhibits. The information below related to the cross section of tree that follows.

We could hear lots of birds in the park. We saw a hawk fly overhead, but this was the only identifiable bird we saw. The one below is stuffed, of course, but the one we saw was alive and flying. A short video told us there were over 200 bird species in the park.

These mountains are called "sky islands," and the next sign explains what that means.

Interestingly, as the mountains rose from the desert, it isolated these particular animals. They cannot survive a trek across the desert should they decide to move elsewhere.

There was one showcase set up to honor the Civilian Conservation Corps. As I've said many times, I am exceedingly grateful for the work done by the CCC. I don't think it's possible to visit any of the parks in the national park system without finding something that was built or improved upon by them.

We picked up a map while we were there. Looking below, you can see the red line of road we traveled to see the park. We started at the visitor center, a little below and to the left of center, and we headed to the right along that winding road.

The formations here closely resemble those seen in Bryce Canyon National Park, except that they are gray in color instead of the red seen in Utah.

It was hard to get good pictures of anything. The road is winding and narrow, and it is lined with trees on both sides. 

As the mountains rose, they took the trees with them. It's interesting to drive in on such a flat and barren landscape to find so much greenery at the higher elevations. Also, there were very few places to pull off the road for a better look. Those available were usually only large enough for one or two cars to park. For this next image, we simply stopped in the middle of the road and I snapped the picture as quickly as I could.

As we moved higher, we encountered more and more snow, and the temperature dropped by 10º F. It wasn't just cold. It was frickin cold. (Technical weather terms.) The wind was blowing hard, and so there's no telling what the windchill was.

Here's a little information about the park itself.

We took a short spur off the road that led to the Echo Canyon and Sugarloaf hiking trails. We dearly wanted to take one of the hikes, but we were not dressed for the cold. I was wearing three layers, but it wasn't enough. Just a few minutes out of the truck, and I could barely feel my fingers. Stopping in one of the parking lots, we could look across the expanse to see the view below. If you look closely at the band of gray across the middle of the image, you'll be able to see the many, many hoodoos present there.

Here's another picture looking in the other direction.

This was the only blooming thing I saw in the park. It's a type of manzanita.

It was seen just to the left of the sign below. It was the only bit of hiking we did. Two-tenths of a mile. Yeah...we really got in a good workout. We only went because of the promise of a "building" when we reached the end.

And sure enough...there was a building. It allowed us to get out of that icy wind. There was a series of signs inside with a view in the direction of what they described.

Use your imagination. I think you'll see Chochise in the image that follows.

Look to the right in the image that follows this next sign. Look very, very closely and you'll see some kind of structure at the top of the hill. Is it an observatory? A fire lookout? We're not sure.

The images below are parts of a larger sign that describes the origin of this landscape.

If you'll recall, my post of a few days ago mentioned our alternative plan to visit Fort Bowie National Historic Site. We passed by the turn on our way yesterday. The two parks are interrelated in that there was very bad blood between the Apache, the United States government, and the settlers who were homesteading native Apache lands. 

From this same area, we could look across the valley to Sugarloaf mountain. There, we could see a fire lookout. It was built by the CCC.

We'd reached the end of the scenic drive by that time, and so we headed back down the hill the way we came. Along the way, we were able to see the formation below known as "Sea Captain." You'll have to use your imagination here too. The little white spot on the right and toward the top of the formation is an arch. It's hard to tell from this image, but it goes all the way through and you can see the mountains in the background. And, yes, it was snowing by that time. It continued snowing until we reached the desert floor.

As we headed toward the exit, I was able to capture a few shots out the window.

We stopped off at the parking lot for Faraway Ranch Historic District. You can read a little about it below.

Following the path, we could see the homestead. This is a small barn we're approaching.

Turning to our right, we could see the well and what remained of a trough.

Here's another shot of the small barn.

Looking inside at the left-most door, the walls were surrounding by these saddle racks (for lack of a better word). Each one had a name above on what appeared to be a coffee can. I'm assuming these were the names of the horses.

Passing through to the other side, I could see a small corral area.

Here's a little bit of information about the Ericksons. They were Swedish immigrants.

Below is their home.

Moving to another small structure, there was an exhibit inside. I took a picture of the display case, but you can see I was dealing with darkness, shadows, and reflections again. The pictures that follow are close-ups of some of the things I found most interesting in this exhibit.

Ed Riggs eventually married Lillian Erickson, daughter of Emma and Neil, and they continued to make improvements to the homestead.

Look carefully, and this is readable.

The road we were driving was built by the CCC and opened in 1934. Who would have thought so many people would attend the dedication?

Walking on, we approached this small structure.

It was locked up, but my peeping Tom camera could peer in through one of the windows.

When we'd explored Faraway Ranch, we headed back to Willcox. We could see the "W" off in the distance.

So despite the cold and the wind, we enjoyed our visit to the park. And we got lucky. As I mentioned in a previous post, the road we were driving had been closed just past the visitor center in the days prior to our visit. Even the ranger discouraged us from ing if we couldn't drive on the road. With snow falling while we were there, I wondered if the road would close again. Indeed, looking at the website this morning, check out that very first alert.

We've encountered some bad weather on this trip. Really, in a month of traveling, there have only been a few warm and dry days. Nevertheless, we seem most often to be charmed when we travel. Weather tries its best to cooperate so we don't miss anything along the way.

As we headed back to Willcox, I reminded Mike that Willcox is a viticulture region, and that we should probably taste some of their wine. We could get food at Coronado Vineyards, and so it was an easy choice. This is their pretty tasting room.

We parked right beside the vineyard.

Inside was a gift shop. I enjoyed these refrigerator magnets...especially the one about Albert Wine-Stein in the upper right...but I didn't purchase anything here.

We each ordered a glass of wine and a sandwich, and then took our number into the dining room where we sat at this table. I took this picture because I wanted you to see this pretty table and the art work.

I had a chicken panini and Mike had a BLT. They were held together with these little picks. 

It's very tempting to collect these, and they aren't the first cute picks we've seen on this trip. Still...I'm just off a big house-purging, and the last thing I need is to start another collection.

Okay, so that was our day. As I said, we'll be heading east again this morning. Our day will end in Las Cruces where we're told the weather is going to be very nice. We have two days there, and then we'll move on to Fort Davis, Texas. 

The eclipse is approaching my friends. We're keeping our fingers crossed for clear skies. You might want to join in with the finger crossing. It's okay to uncross them occasionally, but when you're sitting still, I recommend keeping them crossed. Interestingly, I saw this graphic in the NYTimes this morning. It shows the likelihood of clear skies based on historical data. We'll be in Whitney, Texas, almost right in the middle of the state. 

You can see that our chances for clear skies are 50-50. Fortunately, it looks like we can head west if we need to. Of course, this guarantees nothing, but forewarned is forearmed.

All right, my friends. Time for me to get going with my morning's activities. The sun is shining and we're looking at blue skies for our day of driving. We're heading to an RV park we stayed at many years ago. It was once among our favorite parks because of its huge hot tub. We're hoping the hot tub is still operative and that we can soak our travel weary bones when we get there. It's just one more reason to keep our fingers crossed.