On The Road Again

We  wound up leaving Tombstone Territories RV Park after only four days.  Our understanding was we could ride the side-by-sides right out of the park and hit the trails.  Well, not quite.  It's a 12 mile ride, partly on a  busy highway, to get to the trail head. Nothing like being on a long bridge (no shoulder) with a car coming toward you and an 18-wheeler coming up fast behind you.  

We are now in the booming metropolis of Arivaca, Arizona.  The clerk at the grocery store told Mike that during the 1960's, this was a destination for hippies.  (Clerk was wearing jeans, a T-shirt, with his long gray hair pulled back in a ponytail.)  He said most of them drifted back to wherever they came from but a few have stayed.  He says they are now the old farts in town.

Arivaca is in a area known as a sky island.  You will see from photos that this area gets a lot more moisture than Deming.  There are stubby trees and grass everywhere.  There are HUGE mud puddles on the dirt roads.

This is what the rigs looked like after cruising around Arivaca.

We spent a couple hours yesterday running some desert trails.  They look quite a bit like Deming.  There are trails to the south which appear to lead up into the mountains.  This was a mining area 100 years ago so the trails probably lead to abandoned mines.  We will explore those trails tomorrow when our friends Ron and Sally are in the park.

We took a short ride (for us) to reconnoiter.  As we were wandering around, we encountered three guys who were prospecting for gold (or just spending time away from home).  We asked if there was a way to get to the top of the mountains and across.  They thought and talked for a couple of minutes and told us how to get to the trail.

Prospectors and Mike discuss the trail over the pass.

Thanks to their directions, we found where the trail starts up and across the mountain pass.  They said there is one spot that is "tilty" and another where someone had hauled a trailer up (???) and abandoned it and it partially blocks the trail.  We turned around, as it was getting late in the day, and figured we would try it with Sally and Ron the next day.  

A couple of other interesting items from this ride:  I had always associated mistletoe with oak trees.  We rode down into a wash and saw what were clearly NOT oak trees but had what looked like mistletoe.  And it was.  Several days later, we found a local who told us that mistletoe also appears on mesquite trees.  

We also stumbled onto a humane border station.  Local churches place these barrels of water with a tall flag to assist border jumpers. Running out of water here can be a fatal mistake.

Later:

Sally and Ron arrived and we had dinner together and discussed trying to run the mountain pass road.  They were game.  The trail was as advertised and there was indeed an old trailer which blocked part of the trail.  I should have taken a photo.  How someone got it up there is a mystery.  We passed another abandoned structure on the other side of the mountain pass(see below).  

The next day the four of us took off to run another trail someone had recommended.  It was white-knuckle in some parts but a really good ride.  Best of all, it was only 1.5 miles down the highway to hit the trail.  

Sally, Ron, and Mike

The last day, we headed south from the park down to the Coronado National Forest.  After a fairly long run, we located the old mining town of Ruby.  It must be privately owned now, as it is open to visitors only 4 days a week and it costs $12 per person.  

We went back to a turn marked California Gulch and found a lady who said we could take a long ride through California Gulch and connect to Warsaw Gulch which then would wind back to Ruby Road.  Okay, then, off we go.  Beautiful scenery but not very challenging riding (National Forest Service roads).  We stopped to have a beer and discuss what to do next and a caravan of 7 or 8 Jeeps came along.  We asked them the best way to return to Ruby Road.



The guy in the lead Jeep seemed to have spent a lot of time in this area and said they were going to a couple of interesting places before they headed back.  We were welcome to join them if we wanted to make a couple of stops first.  

The first stop was a very obscure military cemetery.  The leader said he had talked with an Arizona historian who said these were members of the 10th Cavalry Regiment stationed out here on the border.  He said all the graves in the cemetery were from 1917 and these soldiers  may have been early victims of the worldwide flu epidemic.  It was nice to see that someone is taking care of the cemetery.  There was a new American flag and the signs were in good repair.

This is what is visible from the road.  If you didn't know this cemetery was there, you would never stumble on it.

We then followed the Jeeps over a spectacular mountain trail and down the back side to the Mexican border.  There was once a ranch here.  When the border was settled, the line went right through this ranch.  On the Mexican side, there are still cattle.  Doesn't look like there is much still operational on the US side.

Mike in the blue jacket at the border.

We nearly had a catastrophe as we left this area.  It required passing through a gate and going up a steep hill.  Fortunately, Mike was ahead of me and I saw the beer cooler fall off the back of Mike's rig.  One of the Jeepsters hopped out and grabbed it for us.  Whew!

Note to Omar:  no town too small.  See below.

Moving on to Brenda, Arizona, for six weeks to ride trails here.  More adventures to come!