Today is our last full day in the Sierra Vista area. Initially, we were going to take a trip into the Dragoon Mountains east of us but we looked at our Arizona Gazetteer and found out there are no roads going into that part of the state and there is no danger I’m walking there.
We loaded into Charlotte the truck and took off going east. After about 15 miles on AZ-82, we turned south on AZ-80 and drove a few miles into Tombstone. Legend has it that the Earp brothers killed some people they didn’t like called Clanton and McLowrie at the O.K. Corral in Tombstone back in the late 19th century. In Tombstone, you can go to a tourist attraction called the O.K. Corral and see staged gunfights with guys in period costume shooting blanks at each other. In reality, the gunfight was not at the O.K. Corral but actually on Fremont Street a few blocks away.
We stopped to see the gorgeous old courthouse and spotted some stagecoaches filled with tourists wearing Gore-Tex parkas and stiff new cowboy hats. We also noted there are dozens of small mines around Tombstone. We did not know Tombstone’s claim to fame was not aggressive lawmen but silver mining. Some 25 million dollars worth of silver came from the ground here during the heydays in the late 1800’s.
We continued about 15 miles south on AZ-80 until we turned west on AZ-90 back toward Sierra Vista. Just a few miles east of town, we pulled into the San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area. The riparian area extend more than 30 miles along the banks of the San Pedro River and is filled with massive cottonwoods and thousands of birds. We took our binoculars and cameras in with us and were able to add a few more species to our list of birds we have catalogued since the beginning of our journey in 2014.
As the sun dropped behind the Huachuca Mountains, we fueled Charlotte and did some grocery shopping since we are going into the relative wilderness of Southern New Mexico and West Texas for the next week or so. Shopping opportunities are pretty scarce in this part of the U.S. and being fully stocked gives us lots of meal options. We even picked up some DVDs for our viewing pleasure.
See some pix by clicking here