Whitewater Draw Wildlife Area & Tombstone, AZ

     We're finishing up our stay here in Benson, AZ at the Cochise Terrace RV Resort, and if I can get this post done, I'll be pretty much up to date.  It may be tough though.  We spent most of the day out in the great outdoors, got home a little later than usual, and Debbie put together her famous chicken pot pie, and it was delicious.  She added a secret ingredient, potatoes, which she sliced and diced with her new slicer & dicer, but wait, there's more, contraption, that she picked up at the Quartzsite RV Show.  Actually it works very well, and is extremely sharp, so be careful if you ever pick one up.
     Isn't that a great RV Park sign.  Drove past it today while visiting Tombstone, and had to stop and get a picture.  But more on that later.  We headed out this morning to visit Kartchner Caverns State Park, which is just down the road a few miles.  As we entered the park, we stopped at the entrance and spoke with the Ranger at the gate.  She then explained that the fee to enter the park was going to be $7.  Then the fee for a guided tour in the cavern was $23/each.  But the kicker was....I wouldn't be allowed to take any pictures.  Seems like the tourists ahead of us were unable to behave, and pushed and shoved each other so bad, that they bumped into each other and the stalactites and stalagmites.  So no more photography.  That was a deal breaker for me.           So we made a graceful exit and headed for Plan B.  The previous evening, up at Cochise RV, we were told of the Whitewater Draw Wildlife Area. Since it was just a short distance from Tombstone (Plan C), Debbie started working the map to get us there.  After turning off the main road, and traveling about 2.5 miles down a dirt road, we came upon the sign above, and to the right we saw a good size parking lot with lots of cars parked there.  This area had once been a cattle ranch but was purchased by Arizona Game and Fish Department in 1997.

The area was now marshland, open water and mudflats, and in the winter, it is home to thousands of sandhill cranes.  There are estimates of 20,000-50,000 sandhill cranes visiting this draw, and we were told it was quite a sight to see.  It seems that the cranes depart the wetlands each morning, and go out in search of food.  They especially like the corn fields.  In the afternoon and evening, they return to rest, only to repeat everything the following day.  Debbie and I parked our chairs along the 1 mile boardwalk set up by the Game and Fish Dept for viewing. As Debbie worked her binoculars, I practiced taking photos of cranes.

 I didn't have my tripod, and I had to maximize the magnification of the camera, which took a little practice to hold the camera steady.  Then suddenly, they started coming home.  Thousands of them, and Debbie and I sat there for hours watching these clumsy birds come down with successful landings.   As the tempo slowed after a few hours, there was a sudden hush from the birds, and we sat there quietly watching thousands of cranes, not making a sound. They were obviously resting.

By late February or March, they'll begin their northward journey home.  Back to northern portions of the U.S., throughout Canada, Alaska, and across the Bering Strait into Siberia, where they'll meet up with thousand of other cranes from Russia and China.  That is truly an amazing feat.  And here we stumbled upon the best viewing area in Arizona.  And this is why we are on this Journey to See America.

     Over the course of about 3 hours, I took 248 photos of these magnificent birds.  I've tried to include a few to give you an idea of what we saw.  If you come to AZ, be sure to come here for an afternoon, and experience the peace and serenity of nature at work.  Here's a link to a great article, for more information on the Sandhill Cranes:  The Wild Bird Store.
     Our next stop would be the historical town of Tombstone, AZ.  The story of Tombstone only lasted 8 years, but it was a wild ride.  The town was founded by a miner named Ed Schieffelin, who discovered a vein of silver while prospecting.  Friends had warned him that all he would ever find would be his own "tombstone", and the rest is history.

The historic portion of Tombstone today plays heavily on the Gunfight at the OK Corral, and there are characters dressed in period costume wandering all over the streets, playing it up for the tourists.  We stayed away from the tourist haunts, and visited the Tombstone Courthouse, which was built in 1882.  Of course it housed the court, the sheriff, and the jail was at the rear.  Tombstone remained the County Seat until; 1929, when it was outvoted by the City of Bisbee.
   

     Inside the museum, I found this U.S. Immigration Service badge, belonging to Jefferson Davis Milton, who, in 1904,  was appointed as "Inspector of Chinese Immigration in a Foreign Country".  His job was enforce the Exclusion Act of 1882, by policing the border south of Tombstone and west to the California Gulf, making him the 1st Border Patrolman.
     Someday when we have more time, we'll have to return to Tombstone, and see what actually happened to this town.
     Tomorrow we push east to Las Cruces, NM where we are hoping to enjoy a great Mexican dinner in Old Mesilla.  Then the following day over to Carlsbad.  Maybe we'll get lucky and start finding some warmer nights to camp in.