Two years ago this month Peggy and I visited this area on our way east. One of the places we enjoyed the most was the town of Bisbee so we returned today. We left Quail Ridge RV Park and headed south on AZ-90 until we got to the town of Sierra Vista. Once downtown, we turned east on AZ-80 and started a climb into the mountains.
There is very little air pollution here and the vistas are almost endless. As we climbed up to Bisbee, we found ourselves plodding along about 15 miles under the speed limit because the scenery along the way was stunning. Sunsets are pretty spiffy here, too. We finally arrived at the upper end of Bisbee.
Bisbee has probably the best space utilization and most bizarre zoning regulations of anywhere on the planet barring refugee camps. There is very little flat ground in Bisbee so all the houses appear to be built right on top of each other. Very steep and narrow one-lane streets slither between the residences although it looks like some houses do not have direct access to the street. Some of the buildings are built across the aqueduct that ushers the local creek through town. It appears like a city for Hobbits.
We stopped in at both the Bisbee Renovation and the local mining museum and they were both great. Peggy found many stores that had stuff she found interesting like glass ornaments, jewelry and copper things. Nearby copper mines are the reason for Bisbee’s existence, or at least they were before mining crapped out here. There is the gigantic Lavender Pit just at the edge of town, along with a pretty massive mountain of spoils. There are benches with liquids of many unnatural colors in the pit and visible from the mine viewpoint next to the highway. Swimming looks to be right out here.
We drove back home to Quail Ridge getting some magnificent views of the terrain and the vivid sunset. The temperatures have been pretty low at night since a few nights back when a big storm blew through the area. I have filled our (heated) on-board water tank and disconnected our outside water piping since it is dropping below freezing at night.
There are a few Bisbee pics (along with some other days’ photos due to ineptitude on the part of the operator) to see if you click here