Friday and Saturday we took it easy, doing a walk around the park and watched the Grand Slam of Curling from Newfoundland. We have also been watching three or four little rabbits that seem to live under the trailer next door.
Sunday we tried to start the truck to go into Sierra Vista for breakfast. It wouldn't start, so we put the battery charger on, and watched more curling. Since we couldn't go for groceries, Joan baked some bread and cookies.
Monday, we called Lawley Motors Chev in Sierra Vista, and arranged to get the starting issue fixed. When we still couldn't start the truck we called a tow company to take the truck and us into the dealer. We went for lunch, walked to visitor info for some info on hiking areas, and did some shopping while the truck was fixed. They found water in the fuel sensor, replaced another glow plug, and a brake light switch. The brake light switch was causing our cruise control to work intermittently. Apparently the cruise is programmed not to work if the brake light switch isn't working. We were pleased that we were able to get this all done by 3 PM. Our truck and trailer repairs this month added up, but hopefully this fixes the main issues for a while. When we got back to the trailer, we saw a quail behind the trailer, helping the park live up to its name.
It was nice to be able to go for a hike on Tuesday. We drove south through Sierra Vista to Coronado National Memorial, almost on the Mexican border. This makes it as good location for the Memorial to Coronado's expedition from Mexico City to a location as far north as Kansas. The Memorial has an excellent display on the expedition. The expedition of 1500 people left in 1540 searching for the fabled Seven Cities of Gold. They brought over 5500 sheep, cattle and horses. Over two years, they covered more than 5500 miles.
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| Coronado Expedition Map |
About a quarter of a mile from the Visitor Center is the trailhead for the Cave Trail, a 1 mile return route with a 500 ft elevation gain that is rated as moderate. Two women headed up the trail shortly before we got to the trailhead. A good part of the trail is rock staircase, which of course is not the standard 7" rise for house stairs.
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The two women, who were mother and 20 something daughter were at the cave mouth when we arrived. This worked out well as the daughter wanted someone to go down into the cave with her. We had brought a small LED flashlight with us, since Joan has it in her fanny pack, but we wondered if they knew how to use the flashlight feature on our cell phone. Joan had seen the app somewhere on our Verizon phone, but we couldn't find it. The mother would not go into the cave as she had broken her leg on a hike a few years ago, and was being cautious. Joan stayed with her at the mouth of the cave while John and the daughter went into the cave. She had light from her Iphone, so we had two lights. The first part of the cave slanted downward at a steep angle, with a few large 'steps' near the entrance. It was well lit from the light at the entrance. Once we got down about 50 feet (est), we got to the floor of the cave. The floor goes about 600 feet into the cave, so we were glad to have a couple of lights. They enabled us to get a few badly lit pictures. Legend has it that Geronomo hid out in this cave.
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Returning down the trail, we could see a section of fence along the border with Mexico.
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| Border Fence running across the valley |
On the way back, near the trailhead, we encountered a couple coming up who had distinct accents. They are a couple from the UK and Lithuania, who are creating
web content of their travels . We had a long chat about how they are living in their 25 foot 4 season trailer on their journey.
On Wednesday we drove up Miller Canyon to do about 1.5 miles of the Miller Canyon trail. We are doing short hikes while we get back in shape for elevation gains. The trailhead parking is just before a driveway to a private area that only allows residents, guests, and customers who want to buy eggs. We had a bit of trouble finding the trail head because the obvious information boards turned out to be on the opposite side of the parking lot from the trail direction sign. After wandering around for a few hundred yards, disturbing what turned out to be half a dozen hounds in the yard above the parking area we returned to the parking and found the trailhead sign. The trail works its way up and around the private clearing that has about 5 residences in it, before meeting up with the stream bed coming down the canyon. When we got to the stream bed we could hear water gurgling along, but couldn't see any surface water. It turned out to be running through a pipe that goes down the canyon.
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| water supply pipe |
The trail is a bit scrambly stuff, as water seems to run along a good chunk of it, even before a section that crosses and follows the stream bed. We didn't see much on the way up, but on the way down, when it was a bit warmer, we saw some yellow-breasted birds flitting around, a small deer that got caught out on the trail before it saw us coming,
a red-breasted pilated bird foraging on the ground, and a grey squirrel.
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| grey squirrel |
It was strange to see the occasional cactus in this high elevation forest.
We were surprised to see a Border Patrol truck at the trailhead when we returned. Wonder what they were looking for.
On Thursday, we returned to Pima County Fairgrounds, where we stayed over Christmas last year, for a 3 week stay.
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