Seven Cities of Gold

Today we visited Coronado National Memorial, which commemorates the first major European exploration of what’s now the American southwest. The park is about 25 miles south of Sierra Vista, AZ, where we are staying, and only about a mile north of the US/Mexican border.

In the 1500s, stories of “Seven Cities of Gold” with jewel-studded houses made their way to Spaniards in New Spain (Mexico).  The stories were “verified” by a Spanish scout and later by an Indian. 

In 1540, 30-year-old Francisco Vasquez de Coronado was selected to command an expedition to find the cities, claim land for King of Spain, and also act missionaries.  Per some stories, over two thousand soldiers, priests, native allies, slaves and servants were in the expedition.

Coronado traveled all the way from Compostelo, Mexico (on the western coast of Mexico) to present-day Salina, Kansas before he realized there were no golden cities. Turns out the Spanish scout saw the cities from a “distance” and the Indian was fibbing in an effort to get the Spaniards away from Indian settlements.   The missionary portion of the trip didn’t work out well either -- although Coronado at first tried to get along with the Native Americans, he and his men ended up killing some and running others out of their villages.

Coronado did not actually pass through the area that 
makes up the Coronado National Memorial.  But he’s 
thought to have passed through the nearby San Pedro 
Valley, shown here from the park’s Montezuma Pass. 
We reached the pass by driving up a three-mile 
winding road that seemed a lot worse to me going up 
than coming down -- probably because on the way up 
the passenger side of the car was next to a cliff.  We 
took a short hike when we got to the top.

This is the small Coronado National Memorial’s  
visitors center where we saw a good movie on Coronado 
and bought a book on southwestern native plants.  The 
very nice visitors center volunteer was originally from 
Beatrice, Nebraska.

Buckeye wine trip

On one of the sunny but colder days last week, we visited southeastern Arizona’s wine country near the towns of Sonoita and Elgin.  The scenery on the drive was beautiful -- rolling hills, mountains and lots of grasslands.  Jim said it would be a good place to buy a house.

There are twelve winery’s near the teeny, tiny towns.  We stopped at three for tastings and almost everyone we talked with -- from fellow tasters to the servers -- was from Ohio, where I grew up.  The server at the second winery was from Kent, Ohio while two guests were from Columbus and another two from Coshocton.  The server at the second winery was from Salem, Ohio.  

After the tastings we went to dinner in Sierra Vista at a Mexican restaurant recommended to us by the first server (who was from Chicago -- he said after a terrible winter in the late 70's he sold everything he owned and moved to Arizona).  As we were walking in, a man walked out wearing an Ohio State University sweatshirt, so we had to talk with him -- he’d gotten his Master’s at Ohio State.  So it was pretty much an all-Ohio day.

Bev and Jim at the first winery called “Village of Elgin.”  We stayed here the longest, were the only customers, and had a great time talking with the server.  I liked the wine at this one the best.

The last winery was called Keif-Joshua and they had a herd of dogs, including this lover boy of a Basset Hound, a medium-sized mixed breed, a little tiny dog of indeterminate breed and a huge blood hound.  Long ago I had a Great Dane and this blood hound was way bigger than my Great Dane.

Jim took this photo of antelope near Elgin.

A couple of things...

A couple of things we see at Ft. Huachuca Army Post:

Lots of marching troops (although this group got a bit out 
of step when they reached the rocky path above.) The guy 
leading the marching song sounded like a gospel singer. 
We also see military people from other countries.

Wild critters like coyotes, deer and these well-fed turkeys.  

Floating eyes

We were near Deming, New Mexico when we first saw a motionless blimp in the sky.   "What the heck is that?" we wondered.  Turned out it was part of the US Air Force-financed "Tethered Aerostat Radar System" or TARS, which uses tethered high-tech blimps to look for drug runners, illegal border crossings and other illegal border activity. 

Most of the blimps used for border control are about a quarter to a third of the size of the 192-foot Goodyear Blimp.  Besides Deming, we’ve seen them near Yuma, AZ and here at Ft. Huachuca in Sierra Vista, AZ.  Among other high-tech equipment, the blimps have cameras that scan city-sized areas and can zoom in on objects several miles away.

The same technology has been used in the war in Afghanistan. As that war winds down and so does military funding, there's currently a discussion about who if anyone will fund the TARS border blimps and keep them in use. 

I enlarged this photo so it's grainy, but above is a TARS blimp we saw on the ground south of Yuma.  As I write this post, I can see one high in the sky over the border near Sierra Vista, AZ.  

A TARS blimp above a mountain in Yuma.

Tombstone

Last night a cat peed in our tow car.  Or maybe it was a cougar that jumped through the open sunroof of our Honda CRV and decided to give us and our dog the what-for.  Anyway, instead of hiking, we spent the afternoon taking apart and cleaning the inside of our car. 

But yesterday we went to Tombstone, AZ, a one-time wild mining town where the Earps practiced their sheriff skills and had a shoot out at the OK Corral. 

I’m glad we went because we can say we’ve been to Tombstone.  Bur we weren’t especially impressed.  I’m not into Tombstone’s biggest attraction: shoot out reenactments.  The rest of current-day Tombstone is mostly souvenir stores with a sprinkling of ice cream and fudge shops.

But the history is interesting.  The town was founded by a prospector in 1879 who was told the only stone he’d find was his tombstone.  Instead he found silver.  Tombstone was the last western boom town; from 1877 to 1890 there were  anywhere from 14,000 to 20,000 people living there. It was the fastest growing city between St. Louis and San Francisco and even had theaters:  the bar/brothel/show house called the Birdcage for the wild folks and Schieffelin Hall for those who preferred opera. And the Earps plus Doc Holliday did have a shootout with some “Cowboys,” which was a derogatory term at the time.   

Two fires destroyed much of the town during the boom years.  Both times it was rebuilt and mining continued.  Finally, miners dug so deep they hit water, the mines flooded, and it was too costly to pump.  As mining slowed, people left and today about 1500 people live in Tombstone.

Downtown Tombstone, AZ.

Bev in front of the OK Corral (really a now-walled off alley) where Wyatt, Morgan and Virgil Earp, plus Wyatt's friend Doc Holliday, had a shoot out with cowboys Billy Clanton and brothers Frank and Tom McLaury.  After 24 seconds and 30 shots, Clanton and the McLaurys were dead.  

A view inside Big Nose Kate's Saloon, where we had lunch.  Kate was Doc Holliday's girlfriend.

Jim at Big Nose Kate's.