After a leisurely breakfast Thursday morning, Julianne said goodbye to Patty. Julianne and I packed up and headed to Tombstone. After a stop for coffee near Picachu Peak and later for gas at Costco in Tucson, we arrived in Tombstone some four hours after our start. We checked into our hotel and then went into town. As we turned into town, we came up behind a stagecoach. After parking, I later was able to get photos of one of the two stage coaches roaming the town. We saw but did not photograph the trolley car.
We saw the actors selling tickets for the 3:30 reenactment of the gunfight at the O.K. Corral. We did not go in, but continued to walk around the town center checking out the many shops along the pedestrian only main street. There were many, many more tourists than when Patty, Helen and I had visited in January.
Julianne and I then headed out to Whitewater Draw. If possible, it seemed that there were many more birds and noise than in January.
As we were leaving, I grabbed a new handout which showed that there is now a Sandhill Crane webcam - click on the link to view it.
As Patty, Helen and I had done last month, Julianne and I went to the Longhorn Restaurant to order our dinner to take out - our plan was to have a cold beer while waiting for the dinner, then eat back at the hotel as we relaxed in our room. While we were waiting, another man came in alone and ordered his dinner to go as well. We invited him to join us at the table. We learned that he works for Mom's Meals, a company that delivers meals to people's homes and gets reimbursed from Medicare and Medicaid. He is a retired police officer from California who is a now on to a second career. He left just before we did. When we got back to the hotel, his truck was there and he was just leaving - our hotel was completely full and he had to look elsewhere for lodging.
Friday morning was spectacular - even more so than in January.
There were more birds and more noise.
Besides sandhill cranes, we also saw lots of arctic snow geese, plovers, varieties of ducks and flocks of hundreds of what appeared to be redwing blackbirds - they were in the tall grasses and reeds in the shallow waters on the other side of the trail from the cranes, and forming into flocks of hundreds that would rise into the air like a cloud and then dive back into the reeds. We also heard the owls and espied two of them in the distance, sitting on top of the poles which had bat houses near the RV parking area.
After about 45 minutes of the non-stop cacophony of bird sounds, we went back to the hotel for breakfast, showers and packing up. We headed into to Tucson, made a quick stop at Costco so Julianne could get some of her favorite wine and a New York Times at a Starbucks. We were ahead of schedule for meeting Karl and Maureen, so we drove into the city center and happened upon the old Tucson train station. It now houses many offices, a restaurant, museum and the Amtrak station. We made a short visit to the museum where we learned some of the history of railroads in southern Arizona.
We were reminded of the five Cs that support Arizona's economy: copper, cattle, cotton, citrus and climate.
Outside, the museum had an engine on display and Julianne made believe she was driving the train.
We then wandered around the station, the Congress Hotel, the station for local buses and the art deco buildings in the area.
Julianne's visit ended when we met with Maureen and Karl at the office where Karl had a doctor's appointment. We transferred Julianne's luggage to their car, said goodbye and I headed back to Phoenix. What a great time we have had - we need to do this more often.
We saw the actors selling tickets for the 3:30 reenactment of the gunfight at the O.K. Corral. We did not go in, but continued to walk around the town center checking out the many shops along the pedestrian only main street. There were many, many more tourists than when Patty, Helen and I had visited in January.
Julianne and I then headed out to Whitewater Draw. If possible, it seemed that there were many more birds and noise than in January.
As we were leaving, I grabbed a new handout which showed that there is now a Sandhill Crane webcam - click on the link to view it.
As Patty, Helen and I had done last month, Julianne and I went to the Longhorn Restaurant to order our dinner to take out - our plan was to have a cold beer while waiting for the dinner, then eat back at the hotel as we relaxed in our room. While we were waiting, another man came in alone and ordered his dinner to go as well. We invited him to join us at the table. We learned that he works for Mom's Meals, a company that delivers meals to people's homes and gets reimbursed from Medicare and Medicaid. He is a retired police officer from California who is a now on to a second career. He left just before we did. When we got back to the hotel, his truck was there and he was just leaving - our hotel was completely full and he had to look elsewhere for lodging.
Friday morning was spectacular - even more so than in January.
There were more birds and more noise.
Besides sandhill cranes, we also saw lots of arctic snow geese, plovers, varieties of ducks and flocks of hundreds of what appeared to be redwing blackbirds - they were in the tall grasses and reeds in the shallow waters on the other side of the trail from the cranes, and forming into flocks of hundreds that would rise into the air like a cloud and then dive back into the reeds. We also heard the owls and espied two of them in the distance, sitting on top of the poles which had bat houses near the RV parking area.
After about 45 minutes of the non-stop cacophony of bird sounds, we went back to the hotel for breakfast, showers and packing up. We headed into to Tucson, made a quick stop at Costco so Julianne could get some of her favorite wine and a New York Times at a Starbucks. We were ahead of schedule for meeting Karl and Maureen, so we drove into the city center and happened upon the old Tucson train station. It now houses many offices, a restaurant, museum and the Amtrak station. We made a short visit to the museum where we learned some of the history of railroads in southern Arizona.
We were reminded of the five Cs that support Arizona's economy: copper, cattle, cotton, citrus and climate.
Outside, the museum had an engine on display and Julianne made believe she was driving the train.
We then wandered around the station, the Congress Hotel, the station for local buses and the art deco buildings in the area.
Julianne's visit ended when we met with Maureen and Karl at the office where Karl had a doctor's appointment. We transferred Julianne's luggage to their car, said goodbye and I headed back to Phoenix. What a great time we have had - we need to do this more often.
No comments:
Post a Comment