Woke up to a clear, slightly cloudy day and thought we'd have it made for a trip to Chiricahua Monument. We had breakfast and started out by 7:30am....real early birds! First stop was the Amerind Foundation Museum (Indians) to see when it opened (10am). Figured we stop in on the way back. Moved on along the freeway to the turn off for Chiricahua. I was excited, I'd heard it was a pretty cool place. Way back up in the hills along the grassy flatlands we drove. About an hour later we drove up into the mountains. It had started to turn dark and cloudy but we refused to be turned back. Stopped in at the Visitors Center and got the lowdown....where we could hike with Dude and that there was snow on the upper elevations. But....where'd we head first....the upper elevations! Had to see for ourselves. Yep, it was white, cold and wet up there and pretty socked in with clouds. No grand vista like we'd been told we'd see up there by people here at the campground. But, that just means we'll go back in more clement weather. The park is beautiful! We did get a good hike in with Dude too...to the Faraway Ranch. Used to be a real ranch and then a kind of dude (ha,ha) ranch.
Weird spiraling rock formations that look like Indians. This is actually one of the places that the Apaches holed up during the Indian Wars here in Arizona. The Apaches had been here since about the 1500s, they actually came down from Northern Canada and settled here in southern AZ. In the 1700s, the exploring Spaniards came thru but after fighting a bit with the Apache, they gave up and left. Well, then those interfering white men came into the area in the early 1800s and by the mid
1800s, the war between the whites and the Indians was full force. Of course, we know how that turned out and today there are way fewer Apaches than there used to be. But you gotta have respect for them when you read about how they lived and used the land's resources properly....early conservationists?? Anyway, we also stopped by to see the Cochise Stronghold across the valley from Chiricahua and a really neat place too. This is where he died and supposedly his body is buried somewhere in the park. Did make it back to the museum with only an hour to space so first thing tomorrow morning we'll stop in again for about another hour.....they gave us free passes!
We'll try to make it all the way to Mexico tomorrow...a little place called Agua Prieta, just across the border from Douglas, AZ. And Bisbee, AZ, the mining town. Hopefully we'll have enough time for it all tomorrow.