Not so fast, said Mother Nature

Two weeks at the beautiful Catalina State Park in Oro Valley, just outside of Tucson,  we were ready! The tandem was ready! Two weeks to explore Oro Valley and Tucson on the 100+ miles of shared bike/pedestrian paths.

Hold on, said Mother Nature, I have other plans. In the dessert where it rarely rains, it rained for four days. Other days it was cool and windy (20+ mph windy!) We were able to ride about 70 miles total, just enough to know we have to come back; the trails are awesome.

So out came the hiking boots.

The gentle Canyon Loop trail took us through some magnificent saguaros.

The Romero Pool hike was a bit of a challenge,

we made it up the trail, over a lot of rocks, to the top of the ridge

took a photo and hiked back down for a total of about 5 miles.

Stopping by Montrose Pool on the way.

If there is a wine festival, we will find it. It just so happened we found the Off the Vine festival and got to sample some of Arizona’s wines.

The wines were very good but lack the boldness we prefer. However we did fall for a wonderful chocolate orange port. If our porch friends are lucky there will be some to share when we get home (but don’t count on it.)

Oro Valley has a really nice farmer’s market;

after sampling our way through we came home with an assortment of dried food snacks, a red lentil soup mix, a jar of marinara sauce and a couple of pastries.

Making the most of a cool and cloudy day, we went to a nearby theater and saw The Darkest Hour which we recommend for fellow history buffs.

Of course we couldn’t be in Oro Valley and not see ABN’s cousin, Lin and her husband Fred. We joined them at Café Cosa Poca for a very nice dinner.

We love Catalina State Park but the rules are only 14 days and then you have to move on; so we are saying good-bye for now

and moving north to Lost Dutchman State Park near Phoenix, hopefully to warmer weather and some cycling. Actually we can’t complain about the weather as our hometown is experiencing flooding, so we will put on a jacket and be content. 

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Today We Celebrate

Today we are celebrating the 50th birthday of a very special guy, ABN’s son Darin. What joy he was! A bright, happy and inquisitive little boy, he grew to be an intellectual, compassionate and giving man. He provided us with an enormous amount of joy and pride. He had a knack for making good choices; his best was the choice of a spouse. Without him we would never have known our most caring and loyal daughter-in-law, Holly. We love her as though she were our daughter. He approached parenting as he did many of his endeavors, an opportunity to make the world a better place. We can’t imagine life without his daughters, Alison and Camille who carry on his spirit of adventure, compassion and giving back.

Darin continues to make us proud as he and his work in Afghanistan were mentioned in a new book by best-selling author, Steve Coll. We haven’t had a chance to read Directorate S: TheC.I.A. and America's Secret Wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan as it was just released earlier this month. We will be picking our copy up next week. He was committed to using his skills to improve the lives of the Afghan people. As he told his daughters in a letter before his first deployment “My reasons for going to Afghanistan include an honorable sense of duty to help others.” When we hear or read about the progress of education and women’s rights in Afghanistan, we believe he helped make a difference.

Sunday, February 25th will mark the 6th anniversary of the day he lost his life serving with the USAF in the Afghan Interior Ministry, working as an advisor to the Afghan National Police. For those of us that love him, it will be a day of reflection and sadness. Our thoughts will wonder. What would he look like today? Would his hair be turning gray? Would he still be in the Air Force? What would be his rank? Where would he be stationed? The Pentagon? Or maybe he would be retired from the Air Force and following his dream to teach at a university. As we travel into the “wonder” land, no doubt we will shed some more tears.

But for today, we are going to eat Snickerdoodles, share memories, and marvel at what an amazing child and man Darin was. If you are inclined, you may want to join us as we toast him with a good beer (he loved a nice, dark craft brew.)

On Monday we will wipe our tears, put a smile back on our faces and renew our resolve to follow his examples to do our part to make a difference.

If you didn’t have the opportunity to know Lt Col J. Darin Loftis, you can read about him on the J. Darin LoftisMemorial Scholarship blog.

If you are interested, excerpts that speaks about Darin in Directorate S: The C.I.A. and America's SecretWars in Afghanistan and Pakistan can be found on Amazon, “Look inside,” the chapter on Afghan Hands, page 586. Also parts of the impact statements from Holly and the girls that were read at the trial of the person responsible for his murder can be found on page 670.

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Taking a Breather

After an active and stimulating week in Bisbee, we took a week to catch our breath before we catch up with family in the Tucson and Phoenix areas.

Kartchner Caverns StatePark near Benson, AZ is a small, quiet and pretty park with very few attractions. (No, we didn’t tour the caverns as we have toured enough caves and caverns to know it is not something we find all that interesting.)

The weather continues to be mild with highs in the 70s, lows in the 40s. Our activities are somewhat determined by the wind predictions for the day. Most days it is quite windy, up to 20+ mph, so we take advantage of the calmer less than 10 mph days. Finally we had a couple days we could ride the tandem and a couple of days ABN was actually able to do some outdoor drawing.

Patagonia Lake StatePark is a bit larger and the sites are closer together.

Patagonia Lake

The Wanderer found herself parked between two cute little Escape RVs whose occupants happened to be friends; Donna and Tom from Canada, Marty and Steve from a small town in Washington state. Like us, they are exploring Arizona State Parks this winter. Of course we compared notes over wine.

To ABN’s delight, we learned there was an art festival in Tubac, about 30 minutes away. After strolling, looking, admiring, critiquing (and yes, purchasing,)

we took the suggestions from our new friends to have a late lunch at Wisdoms, a family owned restaurant just outside of Tubac. Great suggestion! While the service was extremely slow (probably due to the art festival crowd) the green chili tamale was outstanding. It reminded us of our favorite dish, Sweet Corn Tamale Cakes, at The Cheesecake Factory. Tubac is a small, cute, artsy town we hope to explore in the future when it isn’t festival time.

Once again we worshiped with the Methodists at the Patagonia Community UMC.

WiFi was limited at Patagonia and we had no cell phone service so we were pretty much off the grid. (We are starting to get used to this.) But we did have satellite TV so we were able to watch the improved Texas A&M’s last two basketball wins. Way to go Aggies! And Captain is watching the Winter Olympics.

Monday, we are moving up to Catalina State Park in Oro Valley, just outside of Tucson.

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Embracing our Bohemian Spirit

Many of you have heard us speak about the funky little town of Bisbee, Arizona and may have read our post 2 years ago. Our first visit was such a surprising and amazing experience we were concerned we might be disappointed on our return. We were not! In fact we are even more captivated to the point we took so many pictures we couldn’t decide which ones to share with you. So we have added a Bisbee Page that will provide a more detailed snapshot of this quirky little bohemian town in southern Arizona, about 11 miles from the Mexican border.

The best way to explore any town is by walking and so we did. Laid out as a pedestrian town in the early 1990’s, paths led to homes built on the hill side; later wooden stairs were added. As part of FDR’s New Deal project in the 1930’s, the wooden stairs were replaced with concrete. To navigate this artsy maze of stairs we downloaded the popular Bisbee1000 Stair Climb map and followed the blue arrows. We did half of the route one day and the other half another day. These are just a few of the colorful houses and street art; more can be seen by clicking here.

Garden Gate

A concrete wall

Located down Hwy. 80,

 about 1 1/2 miles from our RV park is the Lowell neighborhood. There is a sidewalk that allowed us to walk along the highway and past the now defunct Queen Mine open pit.

Once a thriving community it is now somewhat of a ghost town. It felt like folks just up and left in the 50’s, leaving behind automobiles and buildings.

Across the highway we strolled into the Shady Dell Vintage RV Park. Here we found a collection of RVs from the 1940’s and 1950’s. Refurbished, they now serve as guests houses and are available for rent. We were in luck that we just happened to be there the day before their season began and was able to get a tour that included the interiors.

More photos here.

With the recommendations of our friend, Keith, we hiked up to see the shrine cross that overlooks the city.

As Keith told us it was a “heart thumper” but worth the hike.

Trail Marker

Made it!

View of Bisbee from the top

Keith was correct!

The Wanderer was parked at Queen Mine RV Park overlooking Old Bisbee on one side and the Queen Copper Mine open pit.

Note the Prayer Flags!

From the park it is a short walk into town. On our previous visit we became acquainted with Bruce who lives 6 months in Bisbee and 6 months in Minnesota; we were happy to see he is still here as he is a wealth of information, especially on the live music venues. (Travel tip; we have found talking with locals and reading other travel blogs provide us with more interesting information on places to visit, things to do and places to eat than the tourist information centers.) We caught up with Bruce shortly after we arrived and took his suggestion to check out Johnny Bencomo playing at the Copper Queen Hotel that evening.

A classic tenor, he sang mostly western ballads and folk songs, including a couple about Kentucky. We had a chance for a short conversation and learned he was a cowboy until his body couldn’t take it any longer and now he puts his heart and soul into his music. He is one of the best folk musicians we have heard.

On Wednesday evening we made our way to The Grand Hotel to hear what Bruce described as a “jug band.” The Whiskey Lickers are an 8 piece mountain music band consisting of 2 guitars, 2 banjos, 2 fiddles, a mandolin and a wash board. They were just fun!

You may recall that on our previous visit we met creative luthier and musician, Keith Edwards aka The BluesWizard. We stopped by his studio to say “hello” and to check out his current projects. Keith uses unique items to create string instruments; he demonstrated a banjo using a hubcap from vintage V8 Ford.

Keith is quite pleased with the way his business, Lunatic Fringe Luthiery has blossomed since moving to Bisbee two years ago. We stopped by Ana’s Seasonal Kitchen Sunday morning to catch a performance.

You can learn more about Keith on his Facebook page and YouTube channel. He showed us his latest project involving a skateboard but ask us to not show a photo as he will be doing a big launch in the next few weeks.

On our previous visit our friend, Bruce, invited us to a jam session of local musicians in the back room of a woodworking shop. As we were walking one day we passed the shop; the door was open so we stopped to inquire if he still hosted the jam session. Yep, on the first Monday of every month, it is a pot luck and we were welcomed.

Steve’s shop has Captain drooling; large space, organized and appointed with very nice tools. Another large room in the back of the shop is where the musicians gather and the food spread was laid out. With a quick count, we determined there were about 75 people of all ages. Probably about 25 musicians playing guitar, banjo, fiddle, piano, drums, harmonica, stand up string bass, mandolin, melodica (aka a blow organ or key harmonica) and those are just the ones we remember. We so wanted to take photos, but declined as we didn’t want to be rude. As was the last time, this was a highlight of our visit. 

Sunday we attended service at the beautiful Covenant Presbyterian Church. It was a very small but friendly congregation of about 15 heads with gray hair. We wonder what will be the future of the church.

It has been a pleasantly sunny week here in Bisbee with highs in the low 70s, lows in the upper 30s. It is quite windy at times, but we will take the wind over the freezing temperatures, ice and snow at home. 

Sorry this is such a lengthy post but truly you cannot describe Bisbee with a few words and photos. We are leaving today with plans to return again next year.

This week we will be in a couple of state parks and have no idea if we will have cell phone and internet access. Our aging laptop is limping but hopefully will stay usable until we return home. If not, we will be blogging with an iPad app which is not exactly user friendly. 

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