Sightseeing in Southeastern Arizona, Oct 2011

On October 17th we took a trip over to Chirachua Natl Monument...it was very interesting.  Watched a movie about the settling of that area and interacton with the Chirachua Apache. 

Then we continued on to Ft Bowie National Historic Park.....now that was an experience. In reality it was only 15 miles from Chirachua, however, it was 8 miles on a gravel road.  A rough road, at that. As we're working our way toward Ft Bowie, we got stopped by a Border Patrolman, he told us there was alot of smuggling on that road. Once he determined we were just old retired folks he let us go on.  We finally arrived at "the spot" and low and behold it was just a porta potty and a map. There was a sign that said Fort Ruins 1 1/2 miles on a hiking path.  We were lucky - a Ranger drove up about the time we were going to leave.  He said there was a handicap access road about 1 mile ahead.  We took that road (another 3 miles on a gravel road) once we arrived at Ft Bowie we parked at a maintenance building and hiked up 500 ft to the visitor center.  It was awful.  I don't see that as being handicap accessible. Anyway we were able to get our National Park book stamped and learned about the Apache skirmish that took place there.  What was really interesting was that Captain Leonard Wood was a participant. Now we know how Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri got it's name.   Ft Bowie is no longer there...just some stones to mark the locations of some of the buildings.  All in all, very interesting considering what it took to get there.

10/25/11 - we took out for Coronado National Memorial.  Quite interesting.   Just a few months ago the place was on fire.  They were able to save the Visitor Center structures....but the fire came right up to their back door.  They actually started a backfire about 3 ft from the window that looks out onto their nature trail.  A fire started in June 2011 and started working it's was northeast.  All in all it ended up burning 29,000 acres.   The grass has all grown back, but you can see burnt trees standing next to green ones. Make you wonder how some trees got burnt and others got skipped.  We watched a movie about
how Coronado, from Spain, came and explored this area and discovered Pueblo's occuppied by Zuni.
After our visit there we continued on to Bisbee.  It reminded us of Eureka Springs, AR.  Narrow, winding roads, with shops on both sides of the street.  They also have a open pit mining operation