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| Sulphur Springs Valley in the distance. |
A beautiful day, sunny and warm 72 F/ 22 C
with a light breeze, I am still feeling really punk with the cold but Woody
asked if I would like to go for a drive and I accepted, I can feel crappy at
home or in the truck and thought going out and about would be a good idea, so
we loaded up the dogs, took some water and snacks, the camera, a box of Kleenex
and headed out. Woody wanted to show me
the route that he and Charlie had taken so I could enjoy the spectacular views
on the drive through the Dragoon
Mountains. We followed Middlemarch Rd. off State Hwy 80 just
north of Tombstone and traveled along the desert floor through the mountains to
Pearce, AZ The road is all gravel with
many washes and varies in width from two lane to barely one lane, in surface
texture from not too bad gravel to rocky and of course the landscapes changes
as one climbs from the desert up into the mountains. I always find it very interesting to note the
changes in the flora and fauna. From
Pearce, we traveled down the Ghost Town Trail to Gleeson Rd, made a detour to the
Rattlesnake Man on the N Double U Ranch road, back to Tombstone, AZ
then home. The trip was about 69
miles/109 km, the travel over the mountains was only 19 miles/29km and at the
top of the pass we were at 6000 ft. which is not very high but we had a
beautiful view of Sulphur
Springs Valley.
Traveling that short distance through
the mountain pass took us almost 2 hours, travelling between 2 and 10 mph. I don’t mind travelling mountain roads but
did get a little nervous while crawling up to the pass, I could not see any
road beside me when I looked out my window, it made me feel a little dizzy as I
looked down into the valley, like straight down, no guard rail, I prefer to see
a little bit of road on my right side when I look down, it was beautiful
though. We travelled through a small part of the Coronado National Forest, for more details follow
the links.
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| Unfortunately the camera cannot portray the depth. |
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| One of the many washes we drove through |
The Coronado National Forest covers 1,780,000 acres of
southeastern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico. Elevations
range from 3000 feet to 10,720 feet in twelve widely scattered mountain ranges
or "sky islands" that rise dramatically from the desert floor,
supporting plant communities as biologically diverse as those encountered on a
trip from Mexico to Canada.
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| Beautiful little road but so narrow the bushes were scrapping the truck on one side as we drove through. |
The sky islands of the Coronado National Forest
are unique, in our travels we have driven through many parts of the
forest
.
It was a good day!
Some pictures of the Rattlesnake Man's desert store,
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| "The Blacksmith Shop" |
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| So many rocks, with natural plants growing among the shelves. |
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| You can see he is out in the middle of the desert |
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| Toys, some very old toys |
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| Can you see the doll buggy and little girls sewing machines, did not ask if these were for sale |
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| Thought the metal "Cowboy" was cool! |
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| Laundry stuff, he did have organization to all his "stuff". |
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