Put up our flags

We purchased a Canadian Flag and an American flag on one or our shopping trips and Woody spent some time today figuring out how to mount them to our hitch. His ingenuity paid off after some thought, he figured out a way to mount them. I checked the internet to find out the proper protocol on hanging flags of different countries, I sure love the internet, can always find the information one needs, just have to make sure it comes from a reliable source. We spent the remainder of day doing daily tasks and chatted online with friends during the evening. Love the internet for that purpose also, keeping up with friends and family.

Jam Session, Woody sang

Cookie is still sick, took her to the vet, she thought Cookie had something lodged in her stomach that is irritating her tummy, they did a couple of X-rays and only saw a couple of small items in her bowl, so hopefully whatever she has eaten will continue to pass. Cookie’s stomach showed some irritation, which has created gastritis. We got some special food and some Mylanta with instructions from vet on use of both. If she is not better by morning, we will take her back, and they will do surgery and keep her overnight, poor little girl, we are praying that she is okay by morning.

We invited our new friends, Nels and Betty to the Jam Session this evening they accepted and met us there, there were also a couple from Germany who are touring the States and stopped for a night to visit a friend in attendance, the MC of the Jam Session talked the lady from Germany into singing a song which was fun for all, she sang “My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean” in English we all sang along, what great fun. Later she sang another song and asked Woody to help her sing, he declined, laughing and saying “only if you want everyone to leave quickly”, the group clapped and encouraged him to sing, and as he was trying to decline once again, the MC came over with a mike and handed it to him, so he sang along with the German lady from where he was sitting at the table. The song was a German song that kids learned in grade school, he did a good job, just could not remember all the words but it was a hoot! The Jam Sessions are such fun, one fellow that plays and sings during the session is 88 years old, and I could not believe he was that old, he plays a mean guitar. The owner John is always invited to sing, he has a good voice, is 83-85, not sure but he is a great fellow and fun.

We ended up staying very late watching an old Paul Newman movie, an actor we both like very much, we have not stayed up this late for a very long time but hey, we are retired and part of the fun of being here is doing whatever we choose at the moment, no schedule.

Thanksgiving Brunch and Cookie is sick

Rained last night, first real rain we have experienced since arriving here, it came down in buckets, the ground is not muddy and the air smells wonderful! After taking puppies out for their morning walk I finished the salad for the Thanksgiving brunch today. During the morning Cookie became sick, we think she must have eaten something that did not agree with her, she is always licking, chewing and picking up anything during our walks and even though we watch her carefully she probably has gotten a hold of something, she does not have any fever, is playing as usual so we are not too worried. We leave for the brunch, as Cookie seems to be fine. The brunch was awesome as we expected it would be, nothing like sharing good food while visiting with good people! We stayed home the rest of the day monitoring Cookie, it became very apparent that she was still having trouble. We decided to give her 24 hours and if she is not well by morning we will phone the Vet, at least we have Cookie registered with a vet here, as we took her to get her shots updated a couple of weeks ago. Poor little girl we hope she feels better soon. I spent some time working on our blog, we both watched some TV and mostly just relaxed.

Met Nels and Betty

Upon arising this morning, I found Woody busy peeling potatoes for the salad we are taking to the Thanksgiving Brunch tomorrow and after walking the dogs I put on the eggs to boil and we both get busy to accomplish what we need to do before leaving. We have a luncheon date today to meet new friends Nels and Betty that we originally met via RV.Net after arriving at our winter home. Nels noticed a post we had made regarding being in Tombstone Territories RV Park and sent a message asking if we golfed, they live in Sierra Vista during the winter, we sent return a message, saying no we didn’t but would like to meet so we set up the date for lunch. We planned on meeting at the Texas Roadhouse when we arrived Nels and Betty were waiting for us but alas, the Texas Roadhouse was not open until later, no problem there was an Applebee’s in the same mall area so followed them to Applebee’s and enjoyed a marvellous lunch, first time we have eaten at Applebee’s but sure will go back, food was great, the company even better. Woody and Nels found they had a lot in common and I enjoyed a good visit with Betty, overall we had an awesome visit.


After bidding farewell to Nels and Betty, we did some needed shopping then headed home and are greeted by excited dogs both of whom were ready for a nice long walk we complete the preparations for the salad, except for the dressing, which I will make in the morning.


The rest of evening, we spent quietly as usual. It rained this evening, should have put our chairs away but did not expect much rain, surprise; it was quite a good shower and it did rain overnight first time since we arrived that we have any amount of rain, really just enough to calm the dust.

Information session & Fourth visit to Tombstone

We attended an information session on Cochise County (things to see and do) hosted by Jim and Ann (activity coordinators for the park) who are very knowledgeable about the area. These sessions are held once a week and cover a variety of subjects; today’s subject was movies that were made in the area. There were so many movies filmed in this area and they do have movie sets that are in use today. Some movies that were made in Cochise County, Tombstone, The Quick and the Dead, Wyatt Earp: Return to Tombstone, I Married Wyatt Earp, The Outlaw Josey Whales, Clear and Present Danger, Young Guns II and many more. For more information if you are interested click on the link:
http://www.thepepper.com/tucson_film_locations.html
This link does not include many of the older movies that were filmed I noticed but still has a very long list!

We are so pleased to have such knowledgeable people right here in the park and they are so willing to share information, know the best routes to any given place in Arizona, even the road conditions of any route. Some roads are classed as Primitive which means dirt, gravel, could be narrow and windy, some creek crossing, etc., so what a bonus they will also warn of any things you need to be aware of regarding hazards of the human kind as in drug runners, illegal alien transportation, bugs, snakes, plants and most anything else you may need to know, like carrying water, having a full fuel tank, etc.
Returning home, we walked dogs, had lunch, completed some tasks, and made another trip to Tombstone, to visit the Wyatt Earp house and a church that Jim made us aware of during the information session. The Wyatt Earp house was restored by a couple from Tucson who after much research of historical documents and pictures restored the house to its original size and appearance. In order to have the house open to the public at no charge the house is also a gallery of Western and Southwestern art, featuring several Arizonan artists and was officially opened in October 2005.

This bronze of Wyatt Earp was dedicated last week.



Wyatt's brothers built homes beside him and across the street which unfortunatly were not preserved.

Standing on the front porch of Wyatt's house, it is so cool to stand on the porch of Wyatt's house, I just cannot explain the feeling.

St. Paul's Episcopal Church -- Completed in 1882, St. Paul's is the oldest standing Protestant church in Arizona. The church has the original stained glass, two ship's lamps, the adobe walls have been stuccoed over, and the steeple was struck by lightening and was rebuilt but is not as tall as the original. The church was not open today; we will try again one day when in Tombstone.

The stained glass windows are covered with a screen so did not photograph well. We will return and try again.

From there we wandered the streets and stopped at the Crystal Palace Saloon for a rest, interesting place to stop, we had looked in on one of our previous visits and took a picture of the fancy bar, today we spent some time and found out some interesting facts. The bar is original, the stools are an addition, stools were not used in the 1800's. Today they boast the best food this side of the Pecos. Cannot vouch for all their food but we ordered Nachos and they were very good!

Mounted on the wall were interesting original historic information included, the roulette table and other items.

Guess you know who this is eh!

The gentleman with the bandanna and stripped shirt is Alphonse Ramirez an Apache Chiricahua Native, we chatted with and purchased some handcrafted jewellery, a bracelet created with Mesquite wood, a mother of pearl and another very pretty green stone, cannot remember the name but was taken with the colour, not turquoise which is mined here and we see a lot of here.

A little history of the Crystal Palace Saloon:

In 1880, the Tribolet brothers and Bernhardt Wehrfritz opened the Golden Eagle Brewery. They offered a free lunch, German style, offering pigs feet and Limburger cheese, among other things. It was called the Fredricksburg Lager Beer Depot at one point. It burned in the 1882 fire. When Wehrfritz rebuilt, he expanded and opened the Crystal Palace Saloon. It was lavishly furnished and a gold fishpond and fountain in the center of the room (no longer there). Marshal Virgil Earp and Dr. George Goodfellow had offices on the second floor. In 1914 when Arizona prohibition closed all the saloons the Crystal Palace became a theatre featuring movies and variety shows. After the prohibition, it was reopened as the Crystal Palace Saloon and in the 1960; it was restored as it was in 1882. It remains the most popular saloon in Tombstone today and the only authentic one.
As most saloons in Tombstone, there are many bullet holes in the ceiling, floors, and walls. The bar, walls, floors, ceiling and lights are original, although the lights have been outfitted to accomodate electricity. The ceilings are decorated with Tin Stamped tiles, really pretty.

Special Note* They were the same type tiles we wanted to install on the ceilings of our home, we found they were available but the cost was prohibitive so we settled for some wallpaper which copied the style of the old tin tiles, Woody and Chris (our son-in-law along with myself) pasted the decrortive wallpaper on most ceilings of our acerage home. When we sold our home everyone who viewed our home made so many positive comments on the ceilings!

After wandering for a short time we returned home, took puppies for a walk, and settled into our usual evening routine, counting our blessings for the opportunity to explore this very interesting area!

Third Visit to Tombstone

After completing various tasks, after lunch we decided to make the short drive to Tombstone once again and visit Boot Hill, a must see when in the area. To view Boot Hill you walk through a building which is a small gift shop with some historic information, there is no fee charged but they do have a donation barrel set up which we contributed to of course, we were given a booklet with information on the most of the graves in Boot Hill, there are many unknown graves in Boothill, some people were found in mine shafts and no one knew who they were at the time, some got themselves shot before anyone in town knew who they were, etc. There are more than 250 graves in Boothill,
The graveyard was originally named “The Tombstone Cemetery” in 1878 and was the burial place for the town’s first pioneers. The cemetery was used until around 1884 when the present plot was opened as a burial place. For years, after the new cemetery was opened Boothill was referred to as the “old cemetery” and was neglected for many years. There has been much work done to restore the graveyard since 1923, some grave markers were even stolen by souvenir hunters! If you wish to read more details and see the names with any history that was available on the person here is a link:
http://www.interment.net/data/us/az/cochise/boothill/boothill.htm

The entrance to Boothill, the group arrived the same time we did and asked Woody to take a pic of them, then he snapped this pic with me standing to the left of the group.

There are some very interesting grave markers, a good example is this one to the right. If you cannot read it, it says:

Here lies Les Moore, four slugs from a 44,

No Less,

No More

Here lies George Johnson, hanged by mistake 1882,

He was right, we was wrong,

But we strung him up and

Now he is gone.

The five men listed on this marker were hanged for killing several people during a robbery of a store in Bisbee and were hung at the Court House gallows in Tombstone.

The lady buried here died due to an overdose of chloroform by a Doctor during childbirth.

The most famous grave site, Billy Clanton, Tom and Frank McLaury, killed in the O.K. Corral gunfight with the Earps and Doc Holliday.

This fellow was believed to be the leader of the gang that robbed the store in Bisbee. He was hanged from a telegraph pole a short distance west of the Court House.

There are many buried at Boothill who died of various diseases, accidents, natural causes and those who were killed by Indians, adults, children and babies.

Emmett Nunnelley who spent the last year of his life seeking to restore this cemetary was buried here in 1946 at his request.

After visitng Boothill, we wandered around Tombstone looking at some interesting old residences that are still lived in today. There are signs stating who lived there in the 1800's and signs stating it is a private residence so we did not take any pictures.

We arrived home after dark, took puppies for a walk then settled into our usual evening routine, which now includes watching some TV, cable is included in our rent and there are two classic movie channels which we are enjoying, most of the movies we like are OLD ones, LOL! Ah life here is just sooooooooooooo good!

Christmas lights and beetle

Woody put our Christmas lights today on the fifth, we will not turn them on yet but the weather was beautiful (83F 28c) with a slight breeze we thought we would take the opportunity to get them up. Did not do much else besides our normal daily tasks, just enjoying the weather, walking the dogs and visiting neighbours who were out and about enjoying the sun.

During the afternoon, I saw this bug crawling on our patio, it has such cool colours and was walking along very slowly, Woody grabbed the camera and took these pictures, and the beetle type bug was not concerned at all with us being around. Do not what kind of beetle but is sure has distinctive colours Eh!

At my favouite spot enjoying a cool one!

Serious stuff, looking through the Schwans catalogue planning our meals. The Schwans man visits our park every couple of weeks, reasonable prices, good quick food.

We spent our evening chatting online with friends and watching TV.

Jam Session with pictures

The highlight of our day was the Jam Session and this time we took the camera. We cannot say enough about these sessions, the pictures do no capture the fun and delight of these sessions. I will not repeat what I shared in the November 14th post but want to say we admire the musicians for their skill, donating their time, we know they have fun but still they commit and travel at their own expense.
The keyboard player and her husband (far left) have since left our park and we miss them, happy travels you two!



Second from the right is Belle, she has a marvelous voice, plays a 12 string guitar and she and her husband are workcampers at this park.



The gentleman on the left is Biff, he is 88 years young. To his right are Mary Kaye and Harry. They all travel from St. David to entertain us every Friday night.

Gary and his wife Deb travel from Wilcox, Gary is the MC for the Jam Sessions.

Jim and his wife Anne (not pictured here) are the Activity Coordinators here, Jim plays a 12 string guitar and we also enjoy his singing.

As Gary calls us, the speculators (LOL).




The sound guy (Pooch) and his wife Donna.

John owns the park, has a marvelous voice and also tells some very funny stories.

All in all we have a great time every Friday night enjoying the Jam Sessions at the park!! Thanks to all the musicians, John and staff.

You just cannot imagine the fun and enjoyment of these sessions without attending, or maybe you can if you have ever been part of an amature Jam Session with a great bunch of people.

Travelled to Bisbee

After completing our usual tasks we decided to drive to Gleeson a ghost town about 26 miles from here 15 miles of gravel road but on the way changed our minds and drove to Bisbee instead, 35 miles from our park and about 10 miles from the Mexican border sitting in the Mule Mountains and were very happy we did, the mountains are beautiful. Bisbee is a appealing, unique, interesting town well worth visiting.



One of the interesting aspects of travelling in this area you never know what to expect. The change from desert to mountains is usually abrupt, not gradual, the flora and fauna is different as are the make up of the mountain ranges, so very different than being in the Rocky Mountains where you can travel many miles, here the ranges are smaller in stature and do not look that interesting until one takes a closer look. Pictures just cannot catch the feeling of amazement that we experienced when we drove into these mountains. The Mule Mountains are a north/south running mountain range, the highest peak, Mount Ballard, rises to 7,500 feet. Prior to mining operations commencing there, the mountains were heavily forested with large Rocky Mountain Douglas-fir and other conifers, but these were all cut down for housing needs, and to feed the furnaces for smelting the ore in Douglas, Arizona, approximately 20 miles due east. Now, the primary vegetation of the Mules consists of Manzanita brush, juniper, lowland oaks and pines, and various grasses. The terrain is very rough, with very steep slopes descending into deep canyons. Common wildlife species include mule and whitetail deer, javelin, various types of rodents, lizards and a wide variety of birds. The upper ridges of the mountains consist primarily of a very hard brecciate limestone, and it is very common to find fossils of clams and snails imbedded in them.

You enter this tunnel and when you emerge on the other end you see Bisbee.

It is so cool! Wandering around town we felt like we had just stepped back into 1910.

Bisbee was founded as a copper, gold, and silver mining town in 1880, and named in honor of Judge DeWitt Bisbee, one of the financial backers of the adjacent Copper Queen Mine.
In 1929, the county seat was moved from Tombstone, Arizona to Bisbee, where it remains. To read more history of Bisbee follow this link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bisbee,_Arizona

Old Bisbee has so many interesting sites to see we will come back, we mostly wandered the streets today just taking in the atmosphere of the town.

Bisbee Mining and Historical Museum was closed so will go back another day to visit.

We stopped at this very interesting shop, Optimo Custom Hatworks.

S. Grant Sergot owns this shop, the shop is set up so the public can view hat making. All the basic hat styles are ordered from the paja toquilla plant of Ecuador and Central America. His hand woven Panama straws come from Ecuador where they are crafted by descendants of the Incas who first wove the plant for water vessels. These weavers learn their art as children and devote their entire lifetimes to it, he is eager to explain to customers who come to browse or to learn about his product line. From the basic hat styles, he styles and finishes them to suit his customer, which contributes to the uniqueness of each creation.The grade of the weaving and the intricacies of the pattern determine the value, a little too rich for our meagre budget. Sergot said once a customer has chosen a particular shade and grade of weaving, picking the specific brim and crown height, he begins his artistry. Using Eastern closed-grain wood hat blocks and steam for the shaping process, Sergot puts the soul into the hat. He is one of four persons in the North America to do what he does.

The streets are narrow, winding through old Bisbee, reminds both of us European streets.

The sidwalks are narrow with storefronts along the street, most sold pottery, art, crafts, it really is town created by old hippies. We chatted with a couple of store owners, one fellow said he stopped here in the 1970's to get flat tire fixed and just stayed on he loved it so much.



Another business owner said when he arrived in the 70's real estate was so cheap he decided to settle there and open his business (pottery).

The third smallest store in North American, this fellow sells honey and mustards that are made from killer bee honey, we bought some special flavoured honey (a way to tasty) and some mustard. The owner of Killing Bee Guy told us that years before the previous building owner's wife wanted her own business so he removed a stair case and gave her that space for her store. He has worldwide recognition and has appeared on National Geographic.

If you want more information or order some of his products follow this link:

http://www.killerbeeguy.com/ The products are not cheap but very good!

The sun was setting on our way home colouring the mountains pink. The buildings you can see in this picture is part of Tombstone.

Arriving home we took the dogs for a walk and settled into our usual evening routine.

We definitely will be returning to Bisbee!