Let's Get Caught Up

We finally left the Wickenberg area for other ground somewhere in Willcox AZ. The drive was pretty uneventful...unless one considers driving through a couple of cities full of stop signals. We arrived in Willcox and set up at the Elks Lodge for a few nights. The Elks Lodge in Willcox is open RVers that are non-members too. The day we pulled in it chose to rain, and very hard at times. We came back home and boy did it come down, at one point it hailed for a short time, fortunately no damage to our home. There are a museums and wine tasting spots within walking distance of the lodge. The first place we visited was the Rex Allen Arizona Cowboy Museum. Some of you may recognize the name Rex Allen from cowboy movies, many albums, or narrating Disney movies. Rex is a home town hero with a street named after him, a statue in the park across the the museum, and his horse is buried at the foot of his statue.

Rex Allen
"The Last Singing Cowboy"

One afternoon we took a drive to the Chiricahua National Park. This park is full of hiking trails, and fantastic rock formations. Driving to this park you would never tell there were any rock formations in these hills. First stop is the Visitor Center to watch a video before either driving up to the top view point, or hit a hiking trail

If you look real close at the first formation it appears to be a head. The story is that it is Geronimo resting. The trails allow one to see the formations from an over view or looking up. I tell you one thing for sure, it was windy the day we were there, so we had lunch in the truck. After lunch we headed to an old abandoned fort called Fort Bowie. The purpose for the fort in it's operational years was to protect the pass used by the Butterfield stagecoach which supplied mail, and Apache Spring which was the only water source for the area. The hike from the parking area to the fort is a 1 1/2 miles.

These are what is left of the stage-coach station that housed an area for sleeping, eating,cooking, and housing horses and donkeys. The tree in the main area probably wasn't there in the early days of the station. Continuing up the trial there is a marker that talks about a fight between the Apaches and the Army. A little farther up the trail is the cemetery where most of the soldiers are buried. Most of the officers were moved to the Presidio in San Francisco some years later. Geronimo's six year old son is buried in the cemetery. Let's continue on through the woods and down the path ... to the Indian agents office ruins, a mock up 

Indian camp, and the Apache spring. Only half a mile to go before we see the fort in the distance. Ok, we have made it, oh wait it's the first site of the fort. The first fort was built by a California volunteer infantry. Later the second site for the fort was built by regular Army Infantry.

New fort site

Old fort site

New fort site

The second site has had some touch up, so much so, they want people to stay off the walls. After a short stay came the hike back to the truck. By the time we got back to the truck we were TIRED!! We drove back to the lodge and crashed for the evening... after we had dinner at the lodge.



Next stop is Alamogordo New Mexico.