Wednesday: I had breakfast with Jean and Barbara, and was then given the generous loan of Barbara's beautifully maintained old car, a gear shift rather than automatic, to my delight. James, Oksy and I decided to do a loop out of South Tucson which had been described in a recent newspaper article. We started by driving East on the I10 to Benson. Here we drove North a few miles and turned off onto a narrow dirt road for another half mile: there was Singing Wind bookshop. Singing Wind bookshop is an utter delight. It's most unique areas are the history and culture of SW United States, but there are loads of other areas to browse. We started choosing armfuls of books, until I discovered that they don't take plastic (I'd assumed that this remote shop would have to do Internet trading, but I was obviously wrong). After this we followed the article's instructions to sample the delights of Reb's cafe in Benson proper. Here at 1020 W Fourth Street, Benson, we walked through the door into the 1950's: fans lazily turned above our heads, the seats, covered in red leatherette, were arranged in booths, there was a clutch of waitresses, none of them young girls. After very good food and coffee, we set off again for Tombstone passing the little Mormon community of St. David's on the way - a rural idyll with fish ponds and pecan trees on both sides. There is also a well known Catholic Monastery here which you can visit if you have time - just to enjoy the peace, the fishponds and the pecans I suppose!
Tombstone is totally kitsch, but not too offensive. We duly took our "I was there photos" and looked into the shops with their amazing array of Western mementos and kit of all possible descriptions, and then, more seriously, went around the Courthouse museum, which is actually very interesting, and well worth a visit. The restored courthouse was erected in 1882, and you can sit in the courtroom, walk in the enclosed prisoners' exercise yard complete with gibbet (poor James managed to get himself locked out there alone for 10 minutes), and there is a lot of interesting information about the ranchers and miners of Tombstone's early period. It was a boom and bust town, no doubt of it. Silver was discovered in the area in 1877, and the Tombstone community established two years later. By 1882, when the courthouse was built, it had a population of 10-15,000. From then on Tombstone's fortunes rose and fell with the global price of silver, until the silver mines were flooded and the pumps ruined in 1909 - and that was the end of Tombstone.
Our next stop was a brief look a the San Pedro Riparian National Conservation area. We drove to the San Pedro House, an old ranch house which serves as a visitor centre and just got a taster of the abundant bird life here. It was beautiful and peaceful. There are many trails for walkers and birdwatchers. From here we drove to Sierra Vista, a new town with as you would imagine, ravishing views of the mountains. We found it difficult to pick up our route here, so we went with the flow and stopped at the town's enormous shopping mall to pick up a few supplies, then proceeded along the AZ90 and then along the AZ82 passing the village of Elgin which is the centre of an area of vineyards and wineries - probably best visited at a later time in the year. The final part of the loop was a very scenic drive along the AZ83 from Sonoita back to the I10. This is wild, empty ranching country, all lightly wooded rolling hills. Again much of it is protected in the Los Cienegas National Conservation Area, and there is a ranch house you can visit, if you wish.
We got back to Tucson at about 18:30 to find Kate had been busy cooking, and that her brother Tully, nephew Declan would be round for dinner. James read stories to Freya from the new books purchased at Singing Wind.
This morning we are all sharing a bit of a cold and cough. Some people are on Lemsips (Walgren version). I think we'll have a slow day today, maybe one short outing this afternoon. Tomorrow we have to prepare for our big trip north.
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