Arizona 2

Cochise County

As Sue and I looked for places to visit while her son Mike was working and to visit with him and wife Laurel over the weekend, here is more of what we found:

Cochise County, their new home community, is a mother lode of sight-seeing treasure. Former Apache country, this was once the home of Cochise and Geronimo. (Anybody who has watched a Western movie will recognize those names of their famous leaders.) Near the heart of the county sits Tombstone, the notorious mining town that still calls itself "The Town too Tough to Die." Known for its legendary tales of the wild West, Tombstone relives daily the infamous shootout at the O.K. Corral where Wyatt Earp, his two brothers, and Doc Holliday took on the cattle rustling Clanton and McLaury clans. We didn't opt for the reenactment; $10 for a 30-second dramatic moment didn't seem worth the cost (or maybe we're just too cheap?). It was enough just to be "on the spot," we decided. We could imagine the rest. The same courthouse still sits there, though it has obviously been well maintained over the years, and many of the other buildings have not changed much either since those days in the 1880s. This is a town that will always pride itself on its heyday,we figured, even 130 years later.

We found a jewel of a different kind in the pretty little Victorian town of Bisbee, near the border of Mexico (see photo above). A former copper-mining capital and now mostly a small art center and tourist town, Bisbee is built along the hillsides in a mountain pass. We gorged on the town's eclectic mix of shops selling jewelry and other craft items, original paintings, and even a tiny 5 ft.-wide shop peddling a variety of honeys. No chain stores here! We also drove up a few of the numerous canyons in the area. None quite matched the gorgeous layout of the Montezuma Pass Overlook I wrote about last Friday, but they all had their own distinctive beauty and eccentricities. By the way, if you ever see a sign that says "unmaintained road ahead", don't go there! We bumped along for five miles on a series of switchbacks that grounded out our rental car a few times and cost us a bit in damages. Some things turn out to be learning experiences, and that was one.

Our base of operations, and the new hometown of my grandson and wife, was the county's largest city, Sierra Vista. Founded as recently as 1956, this town of about 40,000 has already outgrown its first WalMart. Talk about fast-growing! It is large enough to handle a large number of popular chains like Sears, Outback, Pizza Hut, and of course McDonalds (aren't they everywhere?) but small enough to avoid heavy after-work traffic jams. Our kids will like it there, we are sure. Sierra Vista's mountain elevation of more than 4600 ft. guarantees "a bit cooler" summers in Arizona's normally hot summer climate as well as mild winters. A plus: fruit trees (apples, peaches, apricots) flourish here. The kids are already planning to plant a few in their back yard.

I think I'll have to fly in again. I still haven't seen the immense flat-topped stacked boulders that comprise the scenic Chiricahua Mountains on the east side of the county, or Fort Huachuca at Sierra Vista's west border, which was established to bring law and order to the wild cowboys-and-Indians country the same year Tombstone was born and is still a U.S. Army base in operation. It hosts the Army's Military Intelligence Museum, which holds promise of an interesting tour. We still haven't seen the canyon that boasts pictographs (rock art) dating back to 600 A.D. Or Cochise's Stronghold. Let's see, maybe next summer...

Loving my grandson's new digs,
Margaret