Petrified Wood

Granpa is losing patience.  Yeah, yeah, yeah.  He gets it that people lived here a long, long time ago. The ruins were cool; the petroglyphs were really cool, and the teepees, but where IS the pea-pickin' petrified forest!!

Finally, finally we come upon the remnants of the forest.

The word "forest" implies standing trees. Ever since I first learned of this place I expected to drive up on vertical, stone-infested tree trunks. Not.  I confess to being disappointed.  But what we did find is amazingly interesting - and beautiful!

There, resting among the teepees is an enormous stone log.  From this point on there are remnants of the forest scattered everywhere.

So, how do these logs crystallize into petrified wood?  It takes a precise combination of events and elements, which is why petrified forests are so rare.  First, they must be buried in mud in a manner that prevents oxygen from reaching them. The oxygen is what would cause the cellulose to disintegrate.  Remember that this entire area used to be - for a long, long time - under water.  The teepees are in fact composed of what is called mudstone.  (Same stuff those beautiful formations in Death Valley are made from.)

Once buried, the wood needs to be in contact with mineral rich water.  These minerals are deposited right down to the microscopic level, preserving even the tiniest detail of the original tree structure. What's really, really cool is that, depending on the minerals in that water, the slices of tree-stone sparkle with a myriad of colors.  Sometimes even exotic minerals are present and shine in extremely rare red and green hues!

Sorry for the glare, but these polished specimens are so valuable that they have been placed behind glass at the Petrified Wood Company.

Wood is not the only thing that gets petrified. There are petrified clam shells, and here's a collection of Nautilus shells.  These must have taken hours to hand polish.


So, you ask, what good is all of that "stuff." Well, Granpa bought some beautiful pieces that he intends to inset in a wood table top so that I have a "petrified" sofa table.

Or, maybe you could use a spare bowling ball??

(These are actually petrified wood spheres - no finger holes.)

They say that millions of pieces have been taken by tourists before a law was passed weighing very heavy fines for that:  $300 per pound.  If you really want some pieces of petrified wood, leave the park and buy it for $2 a pound in tourist traps or at a really cool place called Petrified Wood Company in Holbrook.  (Just turn right out of the south entrance.)

There must be acres and acres of petrified wood in the backcountry/off-road, because this Wood Company has tons (literally) of this stuff for sale!  I will have to admit though, that Granpa was enormously tempted to take a piece from inside the boundaries of the Park (mostly because we didn't know at the time what was available to buy.)  I told him that if we showed the piece to anyone back home we'd have to be admit to being thieves - not a good Christian witness.  LOL, so he just took a picture of a field of pieces:

All of the brown in the foreground of the photo is made up of small pieces of petrified tree.  Each piece is absolutely gorgeous.  Quite a bit of it is polished by the sands that make up this environment.

(Oh, how I wanted to pocket that little piece of temptation!!)

So, Granpa finally got to see the real-deal Petrified Forest.  Now maybe we'll have to go to the other Petrified Forests scattered around the U.S.:

• United States – petrified wood sites include:
• Petrified Wood Park in Lemmon, South Dakota.
• Ginkgo/Wanapum State Park in Washington State.
• Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona.
• Petrified Forest (California) in California.
• Mississippi Petrified Forest in Flora, Mississippi.
• Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument near Florissant, Colorado.
• Yellowstone Petrified Forest, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming.
• Gallatin Petrified Forest, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming.
• The south unit of Theodore Roosevelt National Park outside Medora, North Dakota.
• Gilboa Fossil Forest, New York.
• Escalante Petrified Forest State Park in Utah.
• Petrifying Springs in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
• Agate Desert in the Upper Rogue River Valley near Medford, Oregon. Though large pieces are rare, the area abounds in petrified fragments.

Who knew???

The Petrified Forest

There are lots of sights to see in the Petrified Forest National Park besides petrified wood.  There are petroglyphs and ancient Indian ruins and a place called the teepees.

Newspaper Rock is pretty amazing:

These designs were pecked into the rock as much as 2,000 years ago.  They say these rocks tumbled down here, but it doesn't say how "they" knew that.  It's lucky that it landed right-side-up so we can understand them (maybe.)  There are markings throughout the Petrified Fored in the "varnish" of the rocks.  This particular one has more than 650 designs.  It is at the bottom of a cliff, inaccessible, and far enough away that maximum zoom on the camera was required.  There are several telescopes fixed on the platform so everyone, even those without camera or binoculars have a chance to see them.  

Archaeologists have worked extremely hard uncovering these walls.  We need to appreciate that fact. This is what the whole site would have looked like thousands of years ago.

There are petroglyphs in this area, too.  It's beautiful here.  A nice place to spend some time.

Obviously these folks did not live in teepees.  Teepees were what nomadic American Indians used for housing.  They weren't farmers, and so did not have to stay in one place.  They would fold up their tents, gather their goods onto travois, and move with the animals that they hunted for food like the buffalo (American bison).

Regardless, the Park has named one location the Teepees.  They look more like they should be in the northern portion of the park, the Painted Desert.

Finally, we get to the Forest...

The Painted Desert

So, we're driving along seemingly on flat ground, but then we discover that we have been on a plateau all along!  This valley has been carved by eons of wind and the wanderings of the Little Colorado River - which has long since dried up.  It begins at the eastern end of the Grand Canyon and arrives here along a broad crescent of territory ending at St. John's, Arizona.

It's easy to see why the northern part of this National Park has been named the Painted Desert.

From here we follow the Park road south across Interstate 40 and on to the Petrified Forest part, but before we go, please try to imagine all of this, as far as the eye can see, full to the brim with an inland sea!

As it dried up an amazing treasure of fossils was left behind.

This guy is known locally as "Wild Bill."  I guess he died with his mouth wide open?  

Can you imagine the deserts of Arizona once crawling with critters like ol' Bill?

Looking back at the earlier pictures, you can realize the ancient water levels by the perfectly horizontal lines "painted" on the cliffs.  How long levels remained constant resulted in the different minerals leaching out of the soil and becoming permanent colors.  The strong lines of color would mean water levels were pretty consistent for a long time. The air-brushed looking colors would have meant the water levels went down pretty steadily.

I know that our current American President has said that climate change is the single most dangerous problem facing our country.  I don't discount climate change, but to my way of thinking, this planet has held itself together through eons of climate change.  In the day of the dinosaur we are made to believe that there were volcanoes dotting the surface of the entire globe, incessantly spewing carbon dioxide. For the life of me, I just don't think cows spewing flatulents, us puny human beings breathing in and out and burning a few tons of coal for power and heat can hold a candle (so to speak) to what incredible dynamics were going on then. Climate change, as global leadership calls it, in my opinion, is nothing but political hyperbole, and a way for former Vice-President Al Gore (amongst others) to make fools of the rest of us by creating imaginary "carbon credits" while flying his fuel guzzling, pollution-making jets around the world at his whim. At least, that's some of what these fossils say to me...

Granpa's SkyView App

A unique planetary alignment happened last night.  At bedtime, Granpa picks up his iPhone 6 Plus and accesses his SkyView app.  Moving it toward the western horizon he picks up this incredible image!

The artwork is overlaid on the actual image.  The blue lines within the fish identify the star constellation we know as Pisces.  As he moves his iPhone around the bedroom 360 degrees we see every constellation with its artwork overlay.  The artwork is beautiful in and of itself!

But tonight Granpa is focusing on the unique alignment of Mars, Venus and the crescent dark moon.
Look closely, and you'll realize that there are two orange globes.  They would be the male and female of heavenly bodies.  Mars, named after the god of war, and Venus, named after the goddess of love.  I suppose one could imagine that the crescent moon is a worried Daddy looking after the young couple?  Whatever, I think it is a really cool image, and I wanted to share it with my friends!

Tucumcari Snowfall

Though Tucumcari, New Mexico is only at an elevation of 4,000 feet, 

we woke up to a couple of inches of snow.  

It was anticipated, so Granpa was up and down all night long watching the snowfall and estimating the accumulation.  It was, in my opinion, just enough to make for beautiful photos.

The roads were clear, so we had the best of both worlds.

Most of New Mexico received some accumulation.  We had a beautiful drive to the Arizona border.

As we neared the state line, Granpa asked me to find the Painted Desert and Petrified Forest National Park on the map.  Huh?  I'm walking around with a (literally) freakin' eyeball, and he wants to go sightseeing.  Hello!  I am the sight!

Oh, well.  We're here.  Might as well take a look-see.  I wasn't prepared for what we saw ...

To Texas and Back

Well, we've had yet another extension to Granpa's contract, so we have to go back to Texas and pick up all of our tax documents to file our 2014 return.  (Any excuse is a good excuse to go home!)

There was no sight-seeing on our way home, and we were only there for two days.  Day one we took everyone available to an I-love-you Valentine's lunch (Tex-Mex of course).

Day two?  Well, day two began at about 2 a.m.

I have Sojgren's Disease which is simply a form of arthritis.  It causes some joint pain, but more immediately it causes dryness:  dry mouth, dry skin, dry eyes.  At 2 a.m. Sunday morning I woke up knowing there was an eye-event going on.  I went to the mirror, and Holy cow, wow! did I have an event!!  All of the "white" in my left eye had ballooned with blisters filled with dark red blood. Not being a panic person (but thinking I could scare the beegeebers out of adults with this new look), I assessed the situation.  Consciously checking, there did not seem to be any change in my vision. There was no pain other than the eyelid not being happy about having to accommodate the swollen membrane.  There was no bleeding (yet).  Other than an optometrist maybe using a syringe to draw off the blood, I don't think anything could be done.  Possibly, nothing should be done as long as my vision was not changed in any way.  So, I put in some Systane Ultra eye drops and went back to bed.

With the sunrise, I knew Granny Beth would be up.  She's a retired RN, therefore I thought she at least wouldn't faint when I showed her my eye.  True to form, she couldn't believe what she saw, but no panic ensued.  I reviewed with her my earlier thoughts, and she agreed with the assessment.  There was nothing to do but wait for a decent Sunday morning hour to put in a call to my eye doctor.

As family members got up or arrived I would cover my eye, prepare them for it, and then reveal the problem.  There was no going to church like that; everyone would think I had been possessed!  Me and my Systane Ultra stayed home.

Contemplating the event, I decided that it was a combination of the normal dry eyes and maybe allergies stirred up when I cleaned out the flowerbed Saturday afternoon.  I absolutely love working my flower beds, and I delighted in the little bit of work required to set things right for Spring.  I saw some moldy spore-lookin' stuff on some of the dead Canna leaves, but I figured no big deal.  Ha! was I ever wrong!

Celebrating our homecoming with family kinda died down because of that.  Our Dallas son and family drove all the way to Tyler to go to Sunday School and church with us.  They enjoyed it with Granpa and Granny Beth...  Parents prepared our little grandchildren for the eye problem so that they wouldn't be frightened by it -- but they simply hugged me, looked at my eye, and proceeded to go out and play with each other and the animals.  No worries.

While at church, our daughter-in-law showed a photo I had taken of my eye (some selfie!) to an ER doctor/church member.  He was appalled.  He thought I should go to the ER asap.

I did call my eye doctor, and he said, yup, things like that happen sometimes.  If there is no change in vision, not a problem.  It will clear up in 4-6 weeks!  Yikes!!!  Throughout the day the swelling increased, so I ultimately called him back for reassurance that it would stop at the iris (though the swelling itself had laid over a portion of it). The blood was beginning to "weep" out, and I thought emailing or messaging a photo of it to him would make me feel better.  He declined the photo op, reassured me the swelling would not affect the iris, and said adios.

Everyone went home, John got some sleep, Systane and I made a night of it.

We left for Arizona Monday morning.  I made certain that Systane was in my pocket. (Oddly enough, just before we left for Texas, I bought two new bottles of Systane Ultra just because.  Very cool, huh?)  I kept my sunglasses on through lunch and whenever I thought other people might catch a glimpse of  "the evil eye."

Tuesday morning at breakfast in the hotel I continued to wear the sunglasses.  A very nice couple sat down next to us.  She was "chatty," mentioned that her eye was swollen from a fall she had taken, and that she had debated whether to put makeup on or not.  I complimented her makeup, and commented that makeup wouldn't help mine!  That opened up the whole story.  Providentially, the Lord was with me yet again.  Her husband was a retiring ophthalmologist with over 40 years of experience!  He was intrigued, and asked to take a look at my eye.  (Oh, my goodness!  At breakfast?)  I thought that the photo I had taken to send to my eye doctor might provide more privacy that uncovering my eye for everyone to see, so I showed him that (after asking if he was absolutely certain that he wanted to see it.)  "Wow," he said.

I could tell he was resisting doing a thorough investigation of it, but he finally asked to actually see the real deal.  Checking to see if there were breakfast guests that might also see, I took off my sunglasses and eyeglasses for just a few seconds. The long and the short of it, he said the same things my eye doctor had said over the phone.  He also assured me that there would be no way for the iris to become involved in the swelling.  (That definitely made me feel better!) The "weeping" of blood wasn't of great concern, only if it actually began to bleed would there be a reason to check in with a doctor.   If there was no change in vision, I should just wait out the weeks it would take for the blood to be absorbed back into the blood stream. At the point of greatest swelling, he said the blood had congealed, so that would take longer to go away.  Sigh.  But thank you, Lord!

We parted ways and headed west.

Montezuma's Castle

Ah, 'tis another few days off.  Where should we go this time?  Hmmm.  One of our Sunday School class members asked if we had been to Montezuma's Castle yet.  Well, as a matter of fact, no.  So, let's go!

What is Montezuma's Castle, you ask.  I suppose you could call a five-story, 20-room home a castle - even if it is in America.  Built 900 years ago, that would be a pretty impressive dwelling, eh?  The Southern Sinagua carved it out of the side of a cliff, so I suppose you could call it a cliff dwelling, too. Personally?  I call it amazing!

Our first sight of it as we step out of the Visitor Center doorway isn't too impressive - though the weather is magnificent.  Now I remember why we hadn't chosen to come here - one would have to hike to the location, and no one is allowed up to the ruins anymore.  But the "hike" is no more than a short walk on pavement.  Near the top of the cliff at the center of the picture you can see the Castle.

To the left is a river - and it is probably why the Sinagua decided to locate here.  The water is swift and clear.  The land between the river and the base of the cliff is relatively flat, and so farming would be easy-peasy.

But the dwelling itself is wonderful.

It doesn't look castle-ish from here, but I remind myself that it is 50 feet tall (5-stories).  Farther to the left was an even larger dwelling carved into the wall, but it collapsed and is just a mess to look at.

A diorama was made for the grand opening of this National Monument, and it speaks pretty clearly as to how they lived here.

Some say this place was not a destination of the Sinagua, that they used this as a resting place before moving on, perhaps, to the cliff dwellings of the Anasazi.  Could this be a forerunner of today's Holiday Inn?  That's a hoot!

There's a lot more to this story - but you'll just have to come here and find out the rest for yourselves. There's nothing like "boots on the ground" to get the entire, real story.

The Second Movie

The Bells of St. Mary's (1945)

Filming Locations

Showing one filming location

Old Tucson - 201 S. Kinney Road, Tucson, Arizona, USA

Yup.  That's what they say.  According to IMDb.com, The Bells of St. Mary's, about a big city Catholic church about to go under because of lack of funding, was filmed in Arizona at Old Tucson. I am gonna HAVE to rent that movie and watch it again to become a believer.

But do know this:  Old Tucson isn't just about Western movies and TV shows.  Portions of Thelma and Louise were shot here.  Also, The Three Amigos, Lillies of the Field, Treasure of the Seven Mummies ...

I could say that I won't bore you with listing the 300-plus projects that have been filmed here. However, I don't find the list boring at all.  Most of my favorite Westerns - including four with John Wayne - have been filmed here.  But if you are interested in knowing more, go to this website: 

 http://oldtucson.com/films-producers-directors/film-history/

This has turned out to be a very cool event.  Granpa did very good!

Hoss was a good ol' Texas boy from Abilene.  He gave up being a high school Algebra teacher there to become an actor!

Do you remember a movie about Adobe Walls?

Yeah, if you like Westerns this is a place you might want to put on your families vacation agenda!

Movie Memorabilia From the 1930's

The very first thing we see, in the parking lot of "Old Tucson," is a Chapman camera boom.  MGM Studios bought it in 1967 and owned it until 1978 when "Old Tucson" bought it.

Old Tucson was built in 1938 by Columbia Pictures for the filming of Arizona.  It was as exact a duplicate of the real Tucson that an 1864 map and photos would allow.  Tohono O'odham Indians were the actual builders hired by Columbia  (That's pretty cool.)

Unbelievably, the next movie was... well, if I was a bettin' woman, I'd bet you five bucks that you would never, ever in a million years guess what the next movie was!  So, I think I'll keep that news to myself for a lil' while.

There were so many projects using the location that there was no time for public tours!  It wasn't open to the public until 1960.


Think of the palm-held video cameras of today.  This monster is what it took to film movies "back in the day."  That camera is so big that it actually makes Granpa look small!!

Old Tucson itself has a fascinating history.  Buildings were built for this movie or that.  A warehouse was constructed to hold wardrobes for various TV series including Little House on the Prairie.  Things were going pretty good around here.

Then, in April, 1995, a frightening disaster befell Old Tucson.  An arsonist set a fire, and one piece of bad luck followed another until half the sets had burned. According to the Old Tucson Wikipedia site, "100 pieces of equipment and over 200 firefighters from every fire department in the Tucson metro area, including Davis Monthan Air Force Base and the Arizona National Guard were used to fight the flames.

"By this point, the wind was out of the west, pushing the fire into the sound stage and west along Kansas Street. Approaches to the fire were restricted by three propane tanks which had vented and were burning. The fire quickly turned into a firestorm with vortices of flames carrying burning shingles and wood throughout the park. Fire control efforts were hampered by high winds. Most of the buildings in the studio were classified as "Temporary Structures," meaning fire prevention devices such as sprinklers were not required. A large propane tank, stashes of black powder used in staging gunfights, and a diesel fuel tank demanded the attention of firefighters and much of the scarce water supply. So much water was used in the attempt to prevent an explosion that the surrounding areas became flooded, further impeding the firefighters as they attempted to wade through the mud. After four hours of firefighting, the flames were extinguished and hot spots located and put out. The loss included all of Kansas Street and Front street to the wash on the east side, the corner store on the west, and the sound stage. The Mission area was destroyed along with the Mission, the Greer Garson house, and the cantina from Rio Lobo. The south end of town and the Silverlake area were not affected. Damages were estimated to be in excess of $10 million ($15 million in 2013), with 25 buildings destroyed. Fortunately, there were no human or animal casualties."

The only piece of (barely) good news was that some of the wardrobe used in Little House on the Prairie had been loaned out to a museum in the city of Tucson and so was saved from the fire.  (Sorry about the glare.)

The rebuild, including "three new streets lined with 12 new buildings, was completed in November 2011 at an estimated cost of $300,000. The design and construction of the new sets was led by Production Designer Gene Rudolf, credited with creating sets for movies including Young Guns II, The Great Gatsby, The Right Stuff, Raging Bull, Marathon Man, and Three Days of the Condor.  The project added dressmaker shops, a general store and a blacksmith, and are part of 'living history' presentations."

Once you have been here you will begin to recognize these sets and the surrounding scenery in tons of films.  The original set for High Chaparral (1966-1971) survived unscathed by the fire.  (Yes, there are stage coach rides, and horseback rides and even a small train ride at Old Tucson today.)

(Tomorrow I'll tell you the name of the second movie ever shot here at Old Tucson.)

"Old Tucson" - Certainly Not What I Was Thinking!

From the very beginning of planning this set of days off, Granpa has been talking about "Old Tucson."  I'm hearing him and putting it on the agenda, but I'm assuming it'll be another trip to a weary looking old downtown with (now) paved streets and tourist traps.

Today is the day we go explore this, and Granpa is excited.  I'm thinking that, if all else fails, we can at least get in a trip through Saguaro National Forest West (because there is a Saguaro National Forest East, too.)

We head west out of Tucson through a mountain pass and into a Saguaro-studded desert.  (Hmm, says I, this is different.)  The mountain pass is gorgeous, as are most in Arizona.  I'm always frustrated because the roads are usually two-lane, and there's no place to pull over for photo ops. Sometimes I try shots from the moving vehicle, but they just don't compare to a stop-n-op.

At least you get to see what a front yard looks like in Tucson ... Lawnmowers need not apply.

You probably can't see it, but this is our first glimpse of what is "Old Tucson."  Follow the wiggly line on the valley floor and try to see the settlement at the end on the left.  Now, imagine that you are on horseback.  This might be what you would have seen coming out of a mountain pass headed for a town in the old west in, say, 1775 when Spanish soldiers founded Presidio San Augustin del Tucson, (or a hundred years later, in a stagecoach.)

That concept visualized is pretty neat all by itself.  

The Saguaro seem to just march inexorably right up the mountain to the absolute top.  They appear to grow right out of the rocks!  These are healthy compared to the ones in the National Park East, but there are no interpretive signs educating you about them.  I scan the tops of all that I can see for a Crested Saguaro that I learned of on our last contract in Kingman, but I find none. (See http://thetravelerstwo.blogspot.com/2013/12/crested-saguaro.html)

I now begin to understand that "Old Tucson" is not old Tucson.  I query Granpa.  "Old Tucson" is a movie set that was built by Hollywood in 1939 to film a movie named Arizona.  (That's the same year Gone With the Wind was released.)  It has been expanded, partially burned down, rebuilt and continues to be a much-sought-after movie set and now, theme "park."  Not a Six Flags or Disneyland, but a theme park nonetheless.

One of my most favorite movies of all time, McLintock, was filmed here.  Knowing that, as I walk the streets of "Old Tucson," I see the locations where the famous John-Wayne-chasing-Maureen-O'Hara segment was shot.

This is a full-size town with complete structures, not just old west facades.  If you could read the directional signs, you would see High Chaparral, Arizona Ruins, Stage 2, Rodeo Arena, and Native Village - and yes, the TV series High Chaparral was filmed here - along with about 400 other movies and TV shows!

Texas Canyon, Arizona

Once out of the mountains and onto the Interstate the sunlight lingers.  There is a rest area halfway back to Casa Grande.  It's known as Texas Canyon because a family from Coleman County, Texas, the Adams family, came here in the 1880's, and soon after they were joined by others from Texas. They are the namesakes of Texas Canyon because, when locals were asked by travelers what was up there, they were told that there were just "a bunch of damned Texans up there."

Before reading this tidbit of information I opined that it was named Texas Canyon because, after hours of driving through flat desert we rose up to this spot which is full of boulders the size of Texas.

Four miles southeast of here at Council Rocks is where the treaty with Cochise and the Apaches was ratified on October 12, 1872.  (Isn't that Columbus Day?  the day we celebrate the white man coming to America?)

Cochise's Stronghold

My!  What a wonderful, unexpectedly great day!  And it's not over yet!  We're turn left onto the loop road headed back to the Interstate.  (Hopefully we will find our way into Cochise's Stronghold before we reach the Interstate.)

Finally, we see a sign. (Not a very impressive one - as if Cochise wasn't so sure he wanted all us easterners to know his secrets).  Granpa hangs a left, and very quickly we run out of pavement.  It is so close to sunset he's not certain he wants to go on, but I urge him forward.  Finally we see an interpretive sign, and I urge him to stop.  (I know, I know.  Women always want men to hurry up and wait.  You'd think we invented the government or something!)

So, I'm out snapping quickies of the sign, and suddenly Granpa is saying, "Pig!  Get a picture of the pig in the road!"  My brain is thinking, pig?  As in pink and squealy? or pig as in wild hogs back home!?  I swing around and snap as quickly as I can with no zoom.  Missed it.  Oh, wow, here comes another. I zoom and focus as fast as I can.

Yes, boss, this is a Javelina!  Officially known as the collard peccary, they apparently weren't around during Cochise's day.  They migrated up from South America in the very late 1800's or early 1900's. Currently they are only found in the USA in Arizona, New Mexico and Texas - but their range is still spreading northwest.  Being tropical in origin they mate year-round and are sexually mature at ten months - which means they have the greatest reproductive potential of all North American "big" game.  But not to worry.  Coyotes and eagles gobble up the babies, and bobcats and mountain lions gorge on the adults, reducing an average lifespan from 24 years in captivity to 7 or 8 in the wild.

We also find deer - which were here during Cochise's time.  This is one advantage of being here toward the end of the day, the wildlife moving.

Cochise was born in these Dragoon Mountains in 1815.  He is supposedly buried somewhere deep in there today.  No one knows for certain.  He was a friend to the white man, until one of them accused him of something he didn't do - and then all hell broke out.  For about a dozen years, from 1860 to 1872, the U.S. Cavalry battled Cochise and his men.  Ultimately, Cochise was forced onto a reservation.

This is Granpa's first picture of the Stronghold.  Buried back in there are secret watering holes and plenty of game to feed a large group of resistance fighters.

We are very quickly losing daylight.  (I refuse to be upset.  I've waited a long time to get here, but Granpa has been so great about this whole crazy day, I refuse to be upset.)

This is a small camping ground, with pit toilets but no showers.  There is a short, paved trail with lots of interpretive signs.

We learn that the Spaniards, who were first through here in 1540 looking for the Seven Cities of Gold, called these mountains "sierra muy penascosa" or very rugged mountains.  They weren't called the Dragoons until some 300 years later - the 1850's.  Dragoons were mounted Mexican or American soldiers armed with rifles - and one of those dragoons is supposedly buried somewhere up there with Cochise!

It's really quite beautiful here.  Serene.  Wish we had a tent!

In 1872, after Cochise's surrender, Captain John A. Sladen came up here with some of Cochise's people.  He finally saw, and understood why, it took a dozen years to uproot Cochise.  It was indeed a perfect fortress with miles of visibility allowing Cochise to see troops coming hours before they could physically get here.  Once here, Cochise had the high ground and every boulder was a protection for his men.  They could stand their ground or, at the very least, provide cover for the women and children as they escaped to the other side of the mountain and vanished.

Deer, antelope, squirrel, cottontail rabbits, oppossum, rats were found in abundance and shared by all the Chiricahua in camp.  Walnuts, acorns, sunflower seeds, mesquite tree beans, yucca fruit and juniper berries were also a staple in the Stronghold diet.  A stream ran through the mountains almost deep enough for a canoe, so water was not a problem.  Golly, even I could live fat and sassy here! Nowadays, of course, a cannon could reduce this to a sandlot in no time at all - not to mention what a few air strikes would do to resisters.

When Cochise died in 1874, he was brought here on his favorite horse.  The horse was killed and thrown into a deep chasm.  Then Cochise's favorite dog was killed and ceremonially thrown in. Finally, Cochise himself, with his favorite weapons, was lowered down with ropes.  No one has yet to find this secret place.

We must go now.  You can tell how reluctant I am.  But it can only get darker, and the things I came to see will be cloaked in the night.  There is a reverence felt about this place.  And that's okay, because great people lived here and great people are buried here.  It is good.

I want to come again.  For sure.