Exploring Old West Arizona: Rockhound State Park, NM 5/27/08

We left Tucson and I-10 for the side trip on old Highway 80. This took us 160 miles on the Tombstone, Bisbee, Douglas route before reconnecting with I-10. It was a round-about way to get to New Mexico and well worth it. The first town we stopped at was Tombstone, famous for Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, and the OK corral. We visited Boothill Graveyard and read the rather poetic and pathetic wooden headstones. Supposedly, they are authentic, but kitschy nonetheless. An example of one is: “Here Lies George Johnson. Hanged by mistake 1882. He was right we was wrong. But we strung him up and now he’s gone.” (The above photo was taken at the Graveyard and in front of the Indian Trading Post). Once we entered Tombstone proper, we took our bikes out and did a little ride around town. It is really more like a Hollywood set than a real town. Imagine a stagecoach that rides thru town, cowboys dressed up and, periodically gunshots heard from around town, as various re-enactments of the famous gun battle ensue. Our big meal of the day was a Buffalo Burger at the OK Café, located next to the OK Corral. The décor was apropos with a huge relief map of the US, adorned with twinkling lights and a gigantic buffalo head mounted around Montana. The best part of the day was visiting the Tombstone Courthouse Museum. We spent well over an hour reading about the real Wyatt Earp, the mining history of the town and viewing the artifacts of that time period. Further on down the road was the town of Bisbee, Queen of the Copper Camps. Much to my surprise it was really cool! It was much bigger than I imagined, built in a small canyon and constructed mainly of brick and Victorian buildings. It’s a true thriving area, unlike the fabricated Tombstone. It’s an artist community with a lot of interesting looking buildings, eclectic shops and character. As we drove out of town, we visited the Lavender Open Pit, named after Harry Lavender. It’s a huge 1000 ft. deep pit, cut into the side of the mountain that provided 8 BILLION pounds of copper. It wasn’t shut down until 1974. On the one hand I was completely repulsed by this huge gaping hole in the ground, and on the other hand I was completely fascinated with how methodically it was mined. We then drove to the town of Douglas, right on the Mexican border. Really, this place was just pathetic. I wanted to visit a historical hotel that was known for its Tiffany mural and gold-leaf lobby. It was beautiful, but, completely out of place in this town. Back in the winniemobile, we wandered for awhile in search of the highway and instead hit a dead end road. Suddenly it occurred to us that the large wall and fence in front of us was the Mexican border. The Mexican side of town contains the “maquiladora” plants and the US side is a sprawl of dust covered well-worn residences. (I’m trying to be politically correct). The temp reading was 99 degrees. We then traveled for about 1 ½ hours on a road where we saw only half a dozen cars, before joining up again with I-10 in New Mexico. The highlight of this strip of road was stopping at the historic marker where Geronimo surrendered. (The Federal Gov’t was obsessed with capturing him. It took 10 years! When he finally surrendered this marked the end of the Indian Wars.) We are currently camped outside of Deming, NM at Rockhound State Park. It has about 20 or so campsites situated in the middle of the desert on a mountain slope. Campers are encouraged to pick-up/collect as much as 15 lbs. of semi-precious stones. Our campsite has a great view of the entire valley with the lights of Deming twinkling in the distance. We saw a great sunset from our site.