End of Year 1 On the Road in the Bachelor Roadhouse

·      10,600 miles

·      44 RV parks (+2 side yards)

·      20 states

·      4 new truck tires

·      2 coffee makers

We set out on our adventure on October 1, 2015, from Hubbard Lake in Northern Michigan, hoping we knew what we were doing.  We’ve been from the UP of Michigan, down to Disney World in Florida, and Galveston Island, Texas; from the Outer Banks on the east coast, to the Grand Canyon in the west.  We’ve enjoyed lots of beach walking and shell collecting, visited many National Parks and Monuments, climbed rock arches in New Mexico, and golfed all we wanted at a park in Georgia.  We attended President Carter’s Sunday School class in Plains, and walked the path of the Wright Brothers’ first flight.  We barely slept in Louisiana, taking in all the Cajun and Zydeco music and awesome food.  We’ve walked through cliff dwellings in Mesa Verde, and stood inches from petroglyphs and Pueblo dwellings more than 700 years old in New Mexico, and have seen some amazing sunsets over the Gulf of Mexico.

We’ve learned so much about the history of our country, and have seen some amazing geography.  I’ve found myself speechless while walking on the Field of Dreams, and nearly brought to tears at Kitty Hawk and the Grand Canyon.  I sat alone at the clubhouse at a park in Georgia and bawled and yelled as my Royals won their first World Series in 30 years, and wondered how anybody else could be sleeping!

We’ve stayed at some really nice RV parks, a couple that were slightly sketchy, and everything in between.  We’ve been able to visit family, and go back north to see our Michigan friends that we miss a lot.  We’ve mostly had highs… Saw one boy get married, another buy his first house and helped him paint the inside, and got to find out about a new grandbaby on the way with the third boy.  We did have to bury my old dog, Hank, my friend for nearly 15 years, but thankfully we were visiting one of our boys at the time, and were able to bury him in the yard there.

Our 46 different “parking places” have included 34 stops of less than a week, 8 places for 1-2 weeks, and 6 places where we stayed a month.  One thing we’ve learned is that we don’t like to travel day after day after day to get from one destination to the next, so we’ve started building in at least 2-night stops when we can.  We also don’t like to drive more than 4 hours per day.  Sometimes that’s been impossible to stick to, but the majority of the time we hit that mark.

Something that still hasn’t happened:  I haven’t done any of the driving while pulling our fifth wheel.  This is something that is going to have to change.  I read a story on one of the RV pages I follow, from a woman whose husband had to have surgery, and he couldn’t drive to get them back home, and she was kind of stuck, unless they hired someone.  I need to get over my fear and just do it!

There’s still so much to see and do out there!  I think we’re in it for at least another year!

Rainy Days and Sick Days

We haven’t done much the last couple of days… Its been cool-ish, and rainy, and I’ve been fighting some kind of stomach bug.  I woke up this morning finally feeling almost human again.  It was raining again this morning, but this afternoon it’s supposed to clear off, so we’re going to go wander around Tombstone again. 

Saturday night we decided to take in some live music.  We started out thinking we’d go to Big Nose Kate’s, as we knew they had live music, but wandered into a couple of other places instead.

The first one was the Four Deuces Saloon.  The history of this building is kind of interesting.  It used to be in a different location in town.  The woman who lived there was a seamstress, and had a perfect view of the events of the Gunfight at the OK Corral.  As it turned out, though, she was fairly nearsighted, and also ran to the back of the house when the fight started, so she was not a reliable witness.

The Crystal Palace was the other place we went to.  It was first known as the Golden Eagle Brewing Company, and was one of Tombstone’s first saloons.  A fire in 1882 destroyed the building, but it was quickly rebuilt and renamed the Crystal Palace.  It was also, over the years, a Greyhound bus station, a warehouse, and a movie theater.  These changes came about due to Prohibition.  Once Prohibition was repealed, it became a bar again, and in the 1960's, was restored to its former glory.

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We decided to go see the Gunfight at the OK Corral this afternoon.  It was a fun show, and your ticket lets you wander through some other buildings that show life at that time... The photographer's studio, and a lot of his work, blacksmith's shop, a "crib" (establishment for a "Soiled Dove"), and several examples of transportation of the time.  It also gave us a ticket to see a combination film/diorama display about the history of Tombstone.

Mannequin display at the actual gunfight site.

Driving a buckboard!

Our Gunfight tickets also got us a couple of different replica copies of the Epitaph from the time of the fight.

It was a good afternoon, but enough for me after not eating much the last couple of days... Hopefully I'll be back to 100% soon!

Ghost Town Search - Gleeson, Courtland, and Pearce

Today we went out searching for a few old ghost towns nearby.  This is one of the things Brad really wanted to do when we picked out Tombstone as a location to spend a month.  A couple of the "towns" were truly deserted, with little left of the town.  One was still kind of a town, with a few people living in the renovated buildings that occupied the town long ago.

The first town we visited was Gleeson.  Gleeson was first named Turquoise, after the turquoise that was mined in the area.  The Turquoise post office had a short life, from 1890-1894.  Later, a man named John Gleeson registered a copper claim and opened the Copper Belle Mine a short distance from where Turquoise was.  At one time Gleeson had 500 residents.  The Gleeson post office was operational from 1900-1939.  Among the remnants of buildings left are a hospital, a saloon, jail, foundation of the school, and evidence of the mining in the hills behind the town location.

This is the old jail.  It is now a museum.

You can see the evidence of the old copper mine up in the hills.

This is pretty much all that is left of Courtland... The old jail.  Courtland was founded in 1909 due to a copper boom, and was named for Courtland Young, an owner of one of the mines.  There was once four copper mines and two railroad lines in town.  At its height, it had 2000 residents.  The town didn't last long, as profits from the mines began to shrink, and a mass exodus occurred in 1921.  A post office was operational until 1942.

The actual jail isn't in bad shape, but has a lot of graffiti on the walls.

We could see mining trails going up several of the hills we drove through.

Pearce was named for James Pearce, a miner and cattleman.  He discovered gold at what became the Commonwealth Mine.  The mine produced gold and silver from 1895-1942.  It was one of Arizona's major silver producers.  By 1919, Pearce had a population of 1500.  There are several structures still left in Pearce, some being used now as businesses or private residences.

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As we drove back to our RV park, we took a long winding road through the Coronado National Forest.  The road was kind of sketchy at times, but offered some beautiful views.

There are many, MANY more ghost towns to search out around here.  I'm sure they will all range from the one building in Courtland, to several renovated buildings in Pearce.  It's fun to look for them, and research the history of the towns.  In this area, pretty much everything had to do with the silver mines.