After Casas Grandes, MX, we drove to Bisbee, AZ, a 7 hr drive over terrible roads, tons of construction, and a mountain pass in a blizzard. Bisbee is a picturesque former copper mine town, and the Queen mine tour is highly recommended. After Bisbee we drove to Tombstone, which is basically a Hollywood Western theme park, and quite fun for a 1/2 day. The re-enactment of the shootout at the OK Corral is silly, but fun. We though the most interesting museum in town was the the Tombstone Epitaph newspaper museum.
Chiricahua National Monument was stunning! One of the best hikes I’ve ever done! See photo link below.
We then drove to Tucson to spend a few days at a friends house, do hiking around lots of cool Suguaro’s, and biked a good part of the Tucson loop bike path. The Titan Missile Museum was fascinating (Christine got to turn the launch key!), and the Degrazia art gallery was worth checking out.
After Tucson we planned to head to New Mexico, but decided that it was still too cold there, so headed west to Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument instead. I went to an interesting talk by a Border Patrol agent on what its like to protect the border in this part of Arizona. He said about 1/3 of the arrests were drug runners, and 2/3 illegal immigrants, but that these days many of the illegal immigrants are ‘give ups’ (people who walk across in large groups and immediately surrender, and ask to apply for asylum. Clearly the US needs to figure out a better long term strategy for dealing with the 10s of 1000s of asylum seekers.
Photos:
- Bisbee/Tombstone
- Chiricahua National Monument
- Titan Missile Museum
- Saguaro National Park, Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, and Tucson
