Benson, Bisbee and Mesa Arizona - February, 2016
February was really busy. The Saguaro Co-op is no place for lazy,
anti-social people. What with dinners on Monday nights, bingo every Tuesday,
movies on Wednesday, happy hour every afternoon, yoga, flexercise, beading, making
cookies for bake sales, board meetings, dancing on Saturday nights, Bunco, and
hours every day in the desert with the dogs we were on the go all month.
We also became friends with Cosmo and Ellen Baraona, who
vastly increased our knowledge of the Co-op and patiently taught us a new game,
Pegs and Jokers. It is sort of like Cribbage, Mexican Train and Monopoly all
mashed together. Serious thought and concentration is required.
We h avebeen looking forward to visiting Bisbee , Arizona
March. When Ed and Christine Woznicki had to
delay their arrival we decide to take a day and see what everyone was talking
about. |
| The latest hardrock fashion |
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| The train is over 50 years old. I'm not worried.... |
Bisbee is the home
of one of the largest and richest copper, gold and silver mines in the world.
It started out as a hard rock mine in the 1880’s and transitioned to open pit
mining in the 1950’s. Mining operations ceased in 1975 when the cost of
extraction exceeded the value of the metals. Bisbee was headed for economic
oblivion when a group of strong minded citizens put together a plan to make the
town a tourist destination centered on an underground tour of the Queen Copper
Mine. They succeeded.
The mine tour was very interesting. It is conducted by old guys
(like me) who actually worked in the mine before it closed. It was a
fascinating window into a world unlike any I have ever experienced. I am
certainly glad that I never had to do that for a living.
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| Many of the original buildings survive |
Like Jerome ,
Arizona Main
Street . I had a chicken confit sandwich on fresh
baked ciabatta with local greens and chipotle mayo. My mouth is watering as I
write this!
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| Redefining "eclectic" shopping. I have idea what the store old |
A couple of weeks later, Ed and Christine arrived and we all
headed back to Bisbee. This time we visited the museum and covered the rest of
the town that Kayeanne and I hadn’t seen on our first trip. Again, we found a
great place for lunch. Thuy’s Noodle Shop has maybe 6 tables, but what it lacks
in size it more than makes up with great food.
It was good to see the Woznickis, again. Kayeanne drove to Las Vegas to spend a weekend
with Liesa and Luis, so Ed and Christine and I revisited Mi Casa for another
excellent Mexican dinner. Ed and I puttered on our coach projects and spent one
afternoon shooting at targets in a local wash. We hit the same spot so often
the sand bank collapsed, burying the targets.
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| Tim Trask and his latest project |
Traveling to and from Bisbee and Tombstone we always passed a bright blue
building in St. David called A
Gallery of Dreams. One afternoon the four of us hopped into the car to go
see just what was inside. We were surprised and delighted to find a very eclectic
collection of bronze and stone sculptures, various kinds of art and ceramics.
We started talking to a tall, weathered cowboy who turned out to be the owner
and world known sculptor Tim Trask. He gave us a tour of the workshop where he
is preparing a 10’ tall statue and described a little of the exhaustive process
that goes into bronze castings. He also showed us a 210# meteorite and a 120#
piece of jade that he was planning to begin work on. If you are going to Bisbee
or Tombstone ,
budget an hour to stop. We had a great time.
We had planned to stay in Benson through the end of the
month, but Judy Powell invited us to join her and her friend Chris to tour
Taliesin West, Frank Lloyd Wright’s winter home and school in Scottsdale . Wright is a fascinating character
as well as one of the most influential figures in modern architecture and
design. At Taliesin, he and his students/employees transformed several hundred
acres of desert into a visually stunning residence, office and school over a
long period beginning in the 1920’s, right up to his death in 1959. Everyone is
required to take a tour and I can see why. The guide talked non-stop for 90
minutes and just hit the high points of the history of the man and the place.
Eccentric doesn’t begin to describe him.
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| Don't move the vase or the table, cut the window to fit. Frank Lloyd Wright personified. |
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| Packed in as closely as possible |
Mesa Regal RV Resort was our first experience with the mega
snowbird parks that have transformed Mesa ,
Surprise, Apache Junction, Scottsdale and
several other great Phoenix
suburbs. The picture doesn’t show the scale and the density of the place. It has over 2,200 sites, pools, spas, ballrooms, bars, tennis courts, shuffleboard, card rooms, a 2,000
seat theater (Donnie Osmond headlines the
weekend we left) and its own entrance
to a shopping center. People seem to love it because most of the spaces are
rented year round but only occupied 4-6 months. We really hated it, and so did
the dogs. If that was RV’ing, we’d stay home.
February 29th was the first day of the next phase
of our adventure. We pulled out of Mesa
headed east. The plan is to cross Texas , stop
for a few days in New Orleans , wander down the
west coast of Florida
and end up in St. Petersburg to see Kayeanne’s brother Grant. Then we are off
to Hilton Head, South Carolina to join Charlie
and Molly Kendrick and travel together to New England .
We can’t wait to hit the road.
More soon.
Bob
