A weekend of laughs, fun and beautiful vistas

The sisters at the infamous graveyard

This may end up being a very long post. I’m going to break it into chapters so that it will make a little more sense, but the bottom line is that we have been having a great time with my sister-in-law Diane and her husband Denny and my other sister-in-law Patty since they arrived her Wednesday night.

Diane and Denny flew in from Baltimore about two hours after Patty arrived from Buffalo, New York on Wednesday night. We laughed a bit but they were tired from a long day of traveling and we turned in pretty much as soon as they arrived back at the trailer.

On Thursday, with temperatures predicted to rise to the high 80s, we changed up our plans to take full advantage of the lower temperatures in the higher elevations and we headed to Tombstone and Bisbee Arizona which are both located in the high desert south of Tucson with temperatures about 10 degrees cooler than in Tucson.


The famous shootout



Our first stop was at the legendary Boothill Cemetery outside Tombstone, a place that Joan and I have traveled past but never stopped until Thursday.  The admission is free and the cemetery is an interesting mix of tragedy and sadness and a little humor. “Here lies Lester Moore, shot four times with a .44. No Les, No More.”

We also stopped at the graves of the three men shot and killed by the Earp (OK, Doc Holliday was there too) brothers in the famous “Shootout at the OK Corral.” We spent about a half hour touring the graveyard and then headed to the famous, or infamous downtown historic Tombstone.

Our trolley tour in Bisbee

And although Joan and I have seen the “Shootout” before we went again with our visitors and enjoyed the re-enactment of the famous gunfight on almost the exact spot where it happened so many years ago.

The sun was hot, but we were able to sit in the shade for the shootout. After that we piled back into the Tahoe and headed a little further south to Bisbee, Arizona, which is a famous old copper mining town just five miles north of the Mexican border.

The scenery to and from Bisbee (and Tombstone) is awe-inspiring and so different from what we are used to back east.

Bisbee, Arizona

In Bisbee we arrived just in time to miss the last Queen Mine tour of the day so we headed downtown Bisbee only to find out that the copper mining museum was set to close in 25 minutes so we hustled across the street to see if we could take a short trolley tour at 4 p.m.

They were also getting ready to shut down for the day, but when they found out there were five of us and then another family showed up they agreed to take us on a tour of the town. Our tour guide was very informative and we appreciated him firing up the trolley and giving us a tour after so many other things had fallen through in town.

When the tour was over we drove a short distance to look down in the 800-foot pit that had once yielded a fortune in copper and then headed north back to the trailer. It took us about 90 minutes to get home, but we arrived in time to find and look at for one last time the Comet Pan-STARRS.

We ate our home cooked meal outside in the dark on the picnic table and then turned in early for our early start to the Grand Canyon on Friday.

Friday, April 15, 2013

Denny and I were up early and went to the fitness center for a good workout before getting cleaned up for our trip north.

Denny poses with staff and owner of Star Touring and Riding

The trip from Tucson to Grand Canyon is about a five hour drive, but we had already decided to stop and visit a family motorcycle association that Denny belongs to which is headquartered in Tucson.

On our way and we stopped at the headquarters office about 10:30 a.m. and Denny was able to meet with the owner and his wife and the small group of employees who run the Star Touring and Riding Association. He was also able to buy a new hat and some patches and the owner gave me a hat pin thanking me for my military service.

The sisters stayed in the car while we got the short tour of the office and after taking some photos we headed back on the road for the rest of our trip.

Lunch on the road

On the way to the Grand Canyon we passed through Casa Grande, Phoenix, Flagstaff and Williams, Arizona. We stopped in Williams for dinner and a little sightseeing and Denny found a leather vest to sew his new patches on.

Dinner was great and we headed on up the road to Valle, Arizona and we checked into the Grand Canyon Inn about 6:30 p.m. and got some rest in preparation for the next day’s adventure at the Grand Canyon.

Denny was a little under the weather and we turned in early.

Our dinner stop the night before

In the morning we were up and out about 9:30 p.m. and arrived at the Grand Canyon about 10 a.m. We started our trip at the main visitor center where we watched a great Grand Canyon video and then headed out to the rim for the first look at the canyon for Diane and Denny.

I always find my first glance into the canyon awe-inspiring and it is a place that never gets old to me.

We lingered at Mather Point for a while and then stopped at two other view points along the South Rim.

At the last one – Desert View Watchtower – we enjoyed the outstanding views of the river and canyon and then had lunch on a picnic table at the site. We were fortunate to see two elks enjoying a quiet snooze in the shade.

One of the many great views of the canyon

At this point we had one of the funniest moments of our trip. When we returned to see the elk we saw a female park ranger standing guard on the sidewalk. We started to talk to her and she said they had called her from the visitor center because a number of folks were menacing the elk and a couple parents had even tried to put their children on the back of a wild elk.

“They think this is like the zoo,” she told us. We exchanged law enforcement talk and how stupid people can be and the lack of common sense and were preparing to leave when my sister-in-law Diane had a sudden urge to confess.

For whatever reason possessed her Diane told the ranger that she felt badly about feeding gum drops to a raccoon at Stony Brook State Park in Dansville, New York some 45 years ago. The ranger looked a little stunned at this sudden express of guilt, but assured Diane that the crime was probably well past the statute of limitations.

Our elk buddy

We were all laughing so hard and I turned to the ranger and told her to make sure she wrote down that conversation for her “book.”  She made a writing motion with her hand. We could only imagine the discussion she had with whoever she lives with that night when she got home from work.

Someday when a ranger tells her that some guy confessed to a murder she can pull out her story about the confession she got at the Desert View Watchtower from a woman who felt a pang of guilt 45 years later about feeding gum drops to a raccoon.

We laughed for more than an hour about the gum drops story.

About 2:30 p.m. we left the park and headed south to Sedona where we planned to have dinner.

Diane and Denny at the park entrance

Avoiding the main highway, I-17, we took the back road US 89A, which is a two lane, windy road through some of the prettiest country in Arizona on the way to Sedona.

What we (I) didn’t know was that Sedona was having a St. Patrick’s Day Parade almost the same time as we were approaching the main drag coming into the town. About a mile north of Sedona we hit a long line of traffic and a police digital sign asking us to be patient and it took nearly 45 minutes to travel the last mile into Sedona.

We arrived just as the parade ended and found a small barbeque place for dinner. It was good and got us back on the road to head south to Tucson.

Downtown Sedona

On the way home we listened to Cousin Brucie on the XM radio and sang along with the oldie, but goody songs that he played.

Unfortunately our traffic issues were not yet over as the traffic on I-10 just north of Tucson narrowed from three lanes to one causing another long traffic jam at a time when I was about gassed from an all-day drive.

We arrived home about 10:10 p.m. after a long, but fun day. We were quickly to bed and asleep.

Sunday, March 17, 2013

Things began to stir early and Denny beat me to the fitness center, but I joined him when he was about ½-mile ahead of me on the treadmill. With church at 9:40 a.m. we had to cut the work out a little short to get back and get cleaned up.

The sisters at Saguaro National Park

Church was good and then we gave Diane and Patty a quick tour of some of the activities at the resort and then headed back to the trailer to get dressed for our more casual afternoon activities.

After changing into casual clothes we headed off for a tour of Saguaro National Park.

The park is about 12 miles from the resort and has an 8-mile loop drive that goes through some of the prettiest desert landscape around here.

Following the drive I took Denny, Diane and Patty on a quick outside tour of the aircraft “boneyard” at the Pima Air Base near us.

The sisters and a very tall Saguaro

We arrived back at the trailer about 4 p.m. and Joan and the sisters made a nice chicken dinner on the grill.

We had birthday cake to celebrate the birthdays of all three sisters because their birthdays are bunched in February and March.

Then we spent part of the evening introducing our guests to our new favorite show – “Duck Dynasty.”

I had planned to put some more photos below, but the computer was being stubborn tonight so if I get a chance tomorrow and the computer is being more cooperative I'll add some more photos above this post.

Until then, adios.