Tucson, Tombstone and Bisbee...Arizona!

Ken's 1st House

On Monday the 16th, we left New Mexico and headed to Tucson, Arizona, with a quick stop at yet another border patrol station. On our way into town, we stopped by Ken's first house and neighborhood. We navigated the RV through the nice wide streets and easily found his old house, though all the beautiful landscaping he labored to put in 40 years ago is, of course, gone.

Pam, Ken, Emory, Karen, Karen, and Dennis

Ken's cousin, Karen, and her husband, Dennis, offered to have us park our RV outside their house while we visit Tucson. After so much touring in New Mexico, we relished spending a few days lounging by their nice pool and chatting with them about all kinds of topics. On Wednesday evening, we 4 met Emory (Ken's other cousin) and his wife, Karen, for dinner at Zona 78, a fantastic local restaurant that has had a lot of success here. We shared a bunch of tasty (and large!) appetizers and beer for happy hour. Yum!

Sheila and Ken

On Thursday, we took the RV in for some service on the water system and used the downtime to do some shopping. In the afternoon, we visited an old friend of Ken's, Sheila, who Ken knew when he had lived in Tucson in the early 70's. We had a wonderful time catching up and carrying on with her about the last 40 years, though we were sorry not to be able to visit with her husband, Don, who passed two years ago. Ken and Sheila swapped cute stories about each of their oldest kids, who played together until Ken's family moved away. We really enjoyed seeing her!

On Friday, Emory and Karen joined us on a tour of Bisbee and Tombstone. Bisbee is an old mining town, first mined in the 1880s and now focused on art, coffee roasting and its 1000 Stair Climb. We wandered around the pretty little historic downtown section in the valley of the large mountains around the town. The streets are very narrow and windy, with switchbacks going up the side of the mountain.

Town of Bisbee

We ate lunch at Cafe Cornucopia, a delightful (and tiny) restaurant in the middle of a street lined with several antique shops and art galleries. The food was spectacular, especially the meatloaf sandwich. We stopped into a few shops and then headed up the street to see the longest stretch of stairs in the town. Since the houses are built literally on the side of the mountains, there are impossibly long sets of stairs to reach them. The 1000 Stair Climb is held in October and thousands of people come out to the tiny town to run up all the long staircases in the name of physical fitness.

We next headed to the Queen Mine Tour, where we dressed in slickers, hard hats and lanterns. We were taken on a small mine train into the old mine by a former employee, who told us all the difficulties of working in such a hostile environment. We learned about the mules that were used to cart wagons full of rock to the surface as well as the dangers of drilling dust and cave ins. This particular mine is a "drift mine", because the mine shaft is level with outside surface (instead of down). In any case, we were taken 1500 feet into the mine where more than 600,000 tons of rock were above our heads. This area was mined for copper, gold, silver, lead and many other minerals, like hematite, malachite, azurite and such. It was very interesting!

After the tour, we headed to the Old Bisbee Brewing Company for some brews and free popcorn. Yum! Great beer!

Lavender Open Pit Copper Mine

Bisbee is also home to an open pit copper mine, so called because it is literally a giant pit in the ground formed after what had been a mountain was stripped slowly away until it became a giant pit 900 feet deep. The Lavender Pit was closed as an active mining operation in 1975, but it continues to be a source of novelty to tourists and aesthetic irritation to residents. Apparently the waste rock from the mine was dumped near what is now a predominantly residential area.

Tombstone, Arizona

Nice.

We drove back to Tucson, but first stopped at Tombstone, a very touristy place famous for Doc Holliday, the Earps, the Clanton gang and the gunfight between them all at the OK Corral. Many of the participants of that gunfight were subsequently buried in Boot Hill Cemetery on the north side of town. We walked around the dusty main street and were approached by one enterprising cowboy who said if we were tired of walking and feeling half dead, the mortuary would be glad to bury us for only $24.95. We headed on back to Tucson before that became necessary. What a great afternoon with Emory and Karen!

Buddy and Ken

For dinner, we met Ken's childhood friend, Buddy, who he hadn't seen in 49 years. Yikes! We spent all of dinner (plus a couple of hours) catching up on almost half a century of life. We had a wonderful time chatting with him.

What a fantastic day!