Benson, AZ

In Feb it was time to return to Benson, where we spent much of last winter. A nice park, a bunch of old friends, and some new old places to visit. The timing of the weather was about right too.

Our Home for Feb & March

And this was our site # 128

The park is a nice, clean park. With plenty of old friends. Plenty of room in the sites too.  We came out west last winter to avoid winter in New England. And did reasonably ok. This year we had the same thing in mind with a little refining. While Benson was ok and was still better than New England, Casa Grande was better and then Yuma was better yet. This is what I am talking about:

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In case you are wondering about Philadelphia, that is Philadelphia, NY, where brother in law and sister in law live.  We checked these temps every day. And every day thanked our lucky stars that we were out here instead of back there.Yuma, by the way, was definitely the warmest area. For January.

The Benson area was kind of fun. On our first trip to the Walmart Store, happened to see this:

Doesn't everyone ride a horse to go shopping at Walmart?

Walmart parking lot

The park itself had some interesting sitings:

Prevost Coach with hydraulic lift on rear for Harley Davidson MC, and a draw bar for towing an F150 Ford Pickup

How is this for a travel trailer?

Kind of different, wouldn't you say?

The best part of our park was our friends. We were very fortunate to be parked next to some very nice people. Our old friends Dick & Patti from Colorado,  and Ken & Judy from Nebraska, new friends Bill & Maureen and Doug & Leila from Thunder Bay, Ontario.

Every day at 4(and sometimes 3:30) it was happy hour.

And some nights we went out for pizza

Dick with the girls- Abby & Zoey

Our wonderful group! That's me not sitting in the empty chair.

And another wonderful happy hour

Mary enroute to another happy hour. This one at some other friends- Bobby & Paula's place. She carried the drinks, I had control of the chairs and the camera.

And sometimes we all went out to eat together......

The bunch of us at Big Nose Kates in Tombstone

The bunch of us at lunch at San Pedro Golf Course

And then we got together with some other  old friends, ones from last year who happened to be traveling through the area. Jerry & Iris from Wisconsin(the proud owners of Sasha & Lara- Boston Terriers.)

Lunch with Jerry & Iris and a couple of their friends at The Horseshoe Cafe in Benson

One thing I tried to do every day was take a walk up Ocotillo Ave to the top of the hill - a hike of a little over a mile. Good exercise and on most days the sights and sounds were awesome.....

A cardinal singing to me

A Gambel's quail on the fence. Could always tell when they were around by their distinctive whistle.. 

Every day, this dog and the German Shepard next door watched me go by

My good friend the German Shepard patrolling his yard

A Roadrunner crossing the road in front of me. Beep Beep!!!!

Roadrunner with city of Benson off in the distance down the hill

Last week there had unbelievable winds. This day, 30-40 mph all day. Dust storm is off in the distance in the vicinity of     I 10

Barrell Cactus in front of Benson Hospital ready to bloom 

While we were in Benson, we took a number of day trips. Among them

• Whitewater Draw
• Old Tucson
• Saguaro National Park
• Bisbee
• Wuertz Gourd Farm
• Tombstone
• Fort Huachuka
• Patagonia Lake State Park
• Chirachua National Monument

Most of these trips involved some driving, with Tombstone being the closest at about 25 miles away and the Wuertz Gourd Farm being the farthest away at about 110 miles. The others were all in the vicinity of 50-60 mile trips. And now a little about each of the trips:

Whitewater Draw advertises itself as premier location for wintering Sand Hill Cranes. We went there and were not disappointed.

A birders paradise

Old Tucson

Definitely one of my favorite spots. We travelled up there with Doug & Leila and Bill & Maureen and had a great day.

The tour guide

The stunt men show....

Mary, Leila and Maureen

Mary with Bill, Leila, and Doug

Mr Elixor

Afternoon break for Ice Cream

Part of the Stunt Men show

Some more of the stunt men show

The Old Gunfighter in Old Tucson- guess who???? And yes, I was a crowd favorite!

Saguaro National Park

The Parking Area

The Welcome Center

The View from the Welcome Center

In the forefront, Ocotillos in bloom

A couple from Alberta was nice enough to snap our pic

The inside of the Welcome Center. With our Senior Pass we didn't have to pay a fee.

Bisbee

Bisbee is known for its mining history- one of the largest copper producers in the US. We learned a lot about mining when we took the Queen Mine Tour. A definite must if you are ever in the Bisbee area.....

Where we boarded the "train" for our mine tour

In the mine

I paid special attention to all the signs that said "Surface this way"

Really quite an experience- at 750' below the surface.

Mary in full regalia for her mine adventure

After the mine tour, we got to tour around Bisbee- quite a nice little town.

US Post Office

Up this road we found a nice little cafe to have lunch

While there we visited a rather unique little shop.....The Bisbee Olive Oil Co. What a selection! Just about every taste that you can imagine. Bought myself a jar of Frog Balls or to better describe them, pickled mini brussel sprouts. Definitely different..... The owner of this shop was originally from Orange, Ct. Believe it or not. And he told us an interesting story about the Stock Exchange Building across the street from his place. Seems the 80 year old ex-sheriff of Cochise County told him the story of the first time he met John Wayne(who spent a lot of time in Bisbee and was supposed to be owner of one of the hotels in town) passed out drunk on the front porch of the Stock Exchange Building. Guess it was not an unusual sight.

When we left the Bisbee Olive Oil Co, our next destination after passing by The Stock Exchange, was the Bisbee Brewing Co.

A cold beer on a hot day in a great little bar. A Growler to go was also in order.


Perhaps the highlight of our day was walking through tunnel from main street area to go to the mine tour and noticing this on the inside of the tunnel:

That's OUR Bernie, from Vermont!

Wuertz Gourd Factory

Our friends at the park, Kitty & Jerry invited us to a "gourd workshop" in an open spot near their Park Model. This was an introduction to what and how to process a gourd in to a piece of art. This whole deal was really quite informative and I can see it as something that Mary, with her artistic capabilities, can get right into.

Our introduction to working with gourds

Tom, with a finished product- a Kokopelli Thunder Gourd

So, after getting a taste of this, we decided to take a trip to Wuertz Gourd Farm in Casa Grande to pick up a supply of gourds so that we had a small supply of them to work on as we traveled across the country and back. The Gourd Farm is really something - and what a selection of gourds. The owner was there to help us and answer our questions and then it was off to select.....

Decisions, decisions, decisions

And more........

Inside the "store", we saw many examples of what the finished product could look like.....

All in all, it was a rather interesting day. We've decided to get on the Wuertz Farm email list and also to attend the Gourd Festival next year. On the way back to Benson, we stopped off at Picaccho Peak area for lunch......

Picaccho Peak in the distance

Tombstone

Tombstone has got to be one of my absolutely favorite places. During our Benson stay, we traveled to Tombstone to enjoy a couple of their special events: Vigilante Days, and Wild West Days.

Vigilante Days was primarily re-enactors performing throughout the day at various locations up and down Allen Street......

Me, with the guys - outside the OK Corral

Vigilante Days was spent with our friends.....

Our favorite place in Tombstone

We had some fun with Bill while there.....

We're pretty sure this pic has spread over most of Canada by now......

The other big event was Wild West Days which featured a big parade.....

Kind of reminds me of the Strolling of the Heifers  parade back home in Vt

And then came the stage coaches....

Some special groups showed up that day too......like the Buffalo Soldiers Motor Cycle Club from Phoenix area.....

Pretty classy bunch of guys and girls....

As you can obviously tell, Big Nose Kates is definitely a must stop for us when in Tombstone.... and these guys are a couple of the main reasons.....

Ricardo and Mick...

Mick at work

Fort Huachuka

Fort Huachuka is located south of Benson about 25 miles. It is a functioning Army Base and is noted as being the original home of the Buffalo Soldiers. Today it is noted for Military Intelligence. Drones are evident. Our first trip there required us to get ID's in order to gain admittance to the base. Wasn't a bad deal, took about 10 minutes. We took advantage of this the first day to tour the base and visit the Museum. Really quite interesting....

A view across the base at housing and surrounding mountains

Inside the museum

On our second trip there, we visited the Military Intelligence Museum.....

Military Intelligence History was broken down by time periods, this one was Civil War era....Another we viewed had to do with Military Intelligence gathering at the Battle of the Bulge.

And this is an actual piece of the Berlin Wall.....

The Iraq wars.....

Pretty impressive Library and Learning Center

Huachuca Mountains in the background - note the snow on the peaks

A look off to the east from the Fort

We both came away with a feeling that we had really missed something by not coming here sooner. It was definitely interesting and rewarding.

Patagonia Lake State Park

Patagonia Lake State Park is a real gem of a place. Popular with bird watchers, fishermen, and boaters. We spent an enjoyable day there and I actually got to do some fishing!

This is view when driving in.....

View down from Ranger Station check-in to public boat launch area

The famous arch bridge

Our view of the lake from our "picnic area"

Our picnic area

The famous arch bridge

We had a good day there. Fishing stunk, but that was ok. I didn't catch anything and I didn't see anyone else who did either. We did enjoy the day  watching the birds and the motorcycles....

A group from the Tucson Police Dept on a training mission.....

Chirachua National Monument

This trip was a little disappointing in that we didn't get to take the road to the upper levels of the park which is perhaps the best part of the whole deal. It seems rain and storms created mud and rock slides which damaged a considerable portion of the road, thus the road was closed for repairs and is still closed as we are preparing to leave the area. Supposed to be open mid April. What we did see, we enjoyed, especially the tour through the Visitors Center(and stocking up on souvenirs and supplies). We did take a short hike on one of the trails, traveled down to Faraway Ranch where we enjoyed a picnic lunch and then a hike to Faraway Ranch.....

Note the snow on the upper peaks......it is 80 degrees where we are standing.

As February rolled in to March, we started losing our friends. The people right behind us, Juan and Irene, from Texas,  with an Elite Suites 39' left first and were headed for a short stay in Casa Grande.

Next to leave were Bill & Maureen and Doug & Leila. They were headed to Yuma for a short stay before traveling on to Lake Havasu and then home to Ontario....

Bill and Maureen heading out.....

Doug & Leila heading out

And finally our good friends Dick & Patti left for Yuma......

And then we were pretty much by ourselves on our row. .........


Doug & Leila sent us this pic after they got home...... I can't imagine swapping AZ for Ontario.......

Doug and Leila sent us this pic - saying how much they missed our Happy Hours. 

Our last week in Benson was busy, what with getting ready to depart, etc.We also had time with our friends. On tuesday of our last week, Keith and Dorann made up a couple of pots of chilli and we had a get-together at Roger & Linda's park model.....all of our friends were there...Bobby & Paula, Kitty & Jerry, Keith & Dorann, as well as our hosts, Roger & Linda....

Keith working on a few "Paralyzers"

Center of the table: a jar of "Frog Balls" we bought in Bisbee, which were actually quite a hit

On wednesday night the park held their farewell party. It was a Mardi Gras theme party and some of the getups were pretty amazing......

The food was great...

Nancy, what a trip!!! Now that is what you call an apron

Bobby & Paula and Jerry & Kitty

Nancy showing off her apron

Linda joined the band for a little "When the Saints go Marching In"

So that brings us to our last day here at Butterfield RV Park. Lots to do today to get ready for our early AM departure tomorrow. It really has been fun. And we do enjoy Arizona - in the winter. But tomorrow it is time to move on with quite an adventure planned.  3 overnight stops in Texas before 4 days in Willis, TX, and a new Direct TV Satellite system, then off to Breaux Bridge, LA for 3 days, and then a 2 day trip to Sevierville, TN for 9 days. More to follow..............