Dos Cabezas

On our way to Chiricahua National Monument a couple of weeks ago, we passed a cemetery almost hidden in the grass near the ghost town of Dos Cabezas (two heads), named for the twin outcrops in the nearby Dos Cabezas Mountains of southeast Arizona. We stopped at the cemetery on our way back from Chiricahua, with the idea of going to Fort Bowie National Historic Site next, but an urgent need for fuel in the forms of petroleum and a Dairy Queen Peanut Buster Parfait, made with hot fudge and caramel sauce, used up all the time and Fort Bowie closed before we could get there. (As an aside, can you believe HH never went to a Dairy Queen, ever, before he met me? I have opened great horizons for him, that's for sure.)

Unfortunately, in all the excitement of finding this great cemetery, I neglected to take a photo of the mountains.

I am a big fan of what I call cemetery hardware: the gates, fences, latches, and general surrounds that have been in many cemeteries I've visited. Some have grand gates at the entrances and some are more pedestrian, like this one.

But the latch was unique. It was so different and simple that I believe I said wow with hushed reverence and played with it for a while.

The ring rests on a short bar within the elongated donut and all it takes to open the gate is lift the ring so it clears the horizontal bar on the gate in the photo above. Genius!

I surveyed the grounds, not really looking forward to blazing a path through the knee-high grass, thinking only of snakes, but what the heck? 

Harken back with me - bear with me now while I go off on a tangent - more than fifty years. When I was a girl I remember being scandalized, because we never said bad words at home, by a framed poem my Aunt Marge had on the wall in her house .

Never say “die” - say “damn.”
It isn’t classic.

 It may be profane.
But we mortals have need of it, time and again;
And you’ll find you’ll recover from fate’s hardest slam,
if you never say “die” - say “damn.”

So I said damn! and looked and listened at every step for snakes as I made my way around the more or less acre-sized site.

There were some wide swaths cut through the grass but they didn't go far. Most of the graves were overgrown like this.

If there was a gravestone inside this fence, it was buried under the shrub on the right.

This view sums up my image of the old wild west. Crooked wooden crosses, rocks piled on top, a wide blue sky, and lonely, rugged mountains as a backdrop.

A trefoil-adorned iron fence acquires more character as it rusts.

A different version is more delicate with its curved lines and open shapes, but this is just the top rail.

The gate looks like it belongs to a different grave site.

The graceful, slender, curved lines continue on the fence, but in a third style altogether, casting a soft shadow on the stone.

Let's just say William, below, came to the Arizona Territory in the 1850s as a member of a commission working on boundary lines between the United States and Mexico; Dos Cabezas served as the commission's home base.  Or maybe he was a Pony Express rider; they stopped here to change mounts en route from El Paso to Tucson.

The Apaches were on the literal warpath during that time. In 1857 a stage station was built by the San Antonio and San Diego Stage Lines (Butterfield-Overland), but by 1861 when Fort Bowie was established, the station had been destroyed by the Apaches. I don't know who he was or what he did, but do know that it would take a love of adventure or a sense of desperation to come to a place like this in the middle of the 19th century.

It seems as though the front section of this stone, with the name and dates, was the original and was later set into another slab for strength. The rosary and decorations on the right side are glass.

I did not go out to these plots but photographed them from a distance.

 Overgrown and forgotten.

I've seen Woodmen markers all over the country. It's a fraternal organization that operates a privately held insurance company for its members. One of the benefits of membership was a headstone in the shape of a tree stump bearing the logo of the Woodmen of the World, but that practice was abandoned in the 1920s due to the cost.

Another overgrown grave but not forgotten. Who would still be putting flowers here after more than 90 years?

A spare, handmade wire cross is almost lost in the tall grass. There's nothing else to say who lies there.

There were no snakes but there is a devil grass here that grows in abundance. Ten minutes in and I was stopping to pick needle-like slivers out of my socks. I was limping as I made my way back to the car. The grass had worked its way in through the mesh of my sneakers and through my socks to my feet. I'm convinced that it would embed itself in my skin if I didn't remove every speck of it. All the way to Dairy Queen I was picking grass out of my shoes, inside and out. What I need for this kind of outing is leather boots and leather gaiters. Time for some shopping because a cemetery like this should never be passed by.

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Thought of the day:

Buying drugs in Mexico

HH and I sauntered across the US-Mexico border last week to buy drugs. There I go - I'll be on the government's hit list now.

I take a few prescription drugs, not that I have any physical ailments that I will admit to, but I humor the doctor who thinks I need them. All but one are available in a generic formula and I have a reasonable copay, but the copay on the one that is still under patent is $57. The total cost of the drug is about $200, a travesty, so the insurance covers the difference. Still, I thought I might be able to beat my copay by going to Mexico. 

The very first store we came to after we crossed the border (and was I disappointed to have no checkpoint whatsoever; I wanted my passport stamped) was a pharmacy. What a surprise! In fact, it seemed like most of the stores we saw on the first streets over the border were farmácias. I was quoted a price of $46 at that one, so I said thanks and with the idea that the closest one to the border would be the most expensive, we kept going. I think we tried two more, but the price was pretty consistent. I ended up not buying the drug there but may go back. After all, $11 is $11, and that's just for one package. But think about that. I can get the identical drug in Mexico for roughly $45 that costs more than four times that in this country. I count my blessings that I have insurance, even with a copay.

Next time we go, I want to take a force field that extends out about ten feet on each side of me so I can fend off the hucksters. Times are tough there and the vendors are aggressive. I did my best to ignore them as we continued on the farmácia quest. Along the way we encountered this place and had I been a stogie aficionado I would have enjoyed an honest-to-pete, no BS Cuban cigar.

Several years ago Voldemort and I took a cruise that stopped in Cozumel and we bought two hand-painted ceramic sinks. One of them was installed in a wet bar when we remodeled the basement of the Virginia house, and there were plans to use the second one when we remodeled one of the bathrooms in the Washington house, but it was still in the garage when I left last year. It was fun to see these, and I was thinking about getting one for the house I have now, but none of them was quite right.

Then I went inside the store and found this one but didn't buy it either. It's too big for my bathroom sink which is the only one I could swap out, but if there was a smaller one... Pretty, isn't it?

This isn't my kind of art but I have to appreciate the craftsmanship of all the inlay work.

Sometimes it's really darned inconvenient living in a trailer. The lack of room does save money but this would be fun to have.

After a little more moseying around and being disappointed that it wasn't the colorful shopping mecca I'd hoped it would be, HH spotted a place to get a very nice $1 shoeshine. While he was so occupied I made my way to a church just next door to take some photos. How do you like his hat? He got it In January when we were at the Ringling Circus Museum in Florida.

The church of the Immaculate Conception. It wasn't Mass time but people were coming and going the short time I was there. There were many more people at the back of the church.

They have a few lovely stained glass windows but not the money to keep them in good repair. They don't show to their best color and brightness because of grates across the windows on the outside, and any damage appears to be repaired with clear glass. In this case, colored glass substitutes for the entire bottom half of the image.

  

This is the grate that protects the windows from the outside. It's quite ornate but does the windows no favors, view-wise.

 I could hear people thinking, "estupida" when I took a photo of the city bus.

We'd heard about a not-to-miss restaurant, La Roca, and when we asked the owner of a tiny shop for directions he practically led us there by the hand. On the way he herded us into a dark bar and all these thoughts of being murdered for our passports and never heard from again went though my head, but it just turned out to be a shortcut and we're still alive to tell about it. I feel guilty about having those thoughts but it could just be my Catholic upbringing speaking.

This passageway and stairs, with the icon below set into the wall at the top, led to the restaurant. We got there in time for the breakfast buffet, a couple of Margaritas, and rousing live music.

When we finished we headed back to the border and a good view of the border fence.

When we entered the country at about 9 am there was already a long line to get into the US, and it was even longer when we were ready to go back. We prepared to wait but there was a vendor with a tiny stand right at the end of the line who told us people over 60 could go in the second walkway, the one that was the express line to Customs and Immigration. All right, then! Just as we started walking, passing everyone by, I turned back to the man and said, Really? I look over 60?


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Thought of the day:

In fact, looking back, it seems to me that I was clueless until I was about 50 years old. - Nora Ephron

Another gem in the Park Service's crown

On my way back from Madison last week (or so) I passed a sign for Chiricahua National Monument on I-10, and later looked it up. When I read that it's the Land of Rocks or something, I told HH I knew where we were going on Monday, one of my days off.

It's about a three-hour drive over, partly on the interstate, partly on state roads, and is another of those places that's in the middle of nowhere. But it's the kind of nowhere that even if it wouldn't suit full time, it would be a calming, centering place to go for a a couple of weeks now and then. My goodness, we have a gorgeous country.

The entrance sign gives no hint of what lies beyond.

The first stop was the Visitor Center, a CCC-built stone structure.

There was something about the interpretive exhibits that was familiar; the style and the font niggled at the back of my mind. They're really well done, informative in a simple way without being dumbed down, and not too many words. That sounds funny but no one wants to stand there and read a placard full of words. Too much information, too much time. These, though, are classic.

Chiricahua is the first place I've heard the term Mountain Islands or Sky Islands. They're vast mountain ranges that are isolated from each other by valleys of grassland or desert. From an informative website I learned that these areas encompass most of Arizona’s biotic communities - tundra (in Arizona!), coniferous forests, deciduous forests, desert, chaparral, grassland, and thornscrub, which I had to look up and means an intermediate zone between desert and tropical forest. Arizona doesn't strictly have a tropical forest but it does have the intermediate zone. 
 
More information from the website: "Sky Islands are among the most diverse ecosystems in the world. As the meeting point between desert and forest, they offer a blend of tropical and temperate climates that can sustain many creatures, and are often the location of streams and other riparian areas. The Sky Island Alliance notes that the region harbors a diversity exceeding anywhere else in the U.S., supporting well over half the bird species of North America, 29 bat species, over 3,000 species of plants, and 104 species of mammals." Ahh-mazing.

One more old-fashioned sign, below, which is just as on-point now as when it was made, back in the late 50s - early 60s. I told a ranger how much I liked the exhibits, and she said they're pretty old, which is when I realized these are Mission 66 projects. 

Post WW2 America hit the roads in droves, visiting national parks in unprecedented numbers. The parks had been underfunded for years (jeez, sounds familiar) and were not equipped for this new visitation. Long story short, Mission 66 poured money into the parks' infrastructure: employee housing, roads, utilities, and most visibly, Visitor Centers. The idea was to have it all done by 1966, the 50th anniversary of the Park Service. Some of the projects have already been destroyed, like the Cyclorama Building at Gettysburg, a real shame. It was, coincidentally, designed by the same architect that designed the Painted Desert Community Complex at Petrified Forest, which included the Visitor Center, employee housing, a clinic, and a school building.

What these displays reminded me of were oversized ones at Petrified Forest hanging on the walls in the archeologist's, paleontologist's, and Resource Manager's offices. They were being thrown away several years ago and the paleontologist went dumpster diving to rescue them. Of course the content is not the same, but the style is unmistakably similar.

An exhibit case that tells a brief story about the Chiricahua Apaches looks pretty good for being almost 50 years old.

And some pretty birds.

This cute little whatever-it-is was parked outside the Visitor Center. I was going to say they ran out of letters but I think it's more a matter of running out of vehicle to put the letters on.

Then we headed to the drive through the park, oohing and aahing all the way.

This formation is Cochise Head, with an eyelash made from a 100-foot Douglas fir. Or so they say; I'm not sure I see it. The formation is made from welded tuff, a rock formed from volcanic ash.

A nearby volcano erupted at least nine times with the resulting accumulation of ash and pellets of molten pumice reaching 2000 feet. And then proceeded to erode.

I'm not entirely happy with these photos. I used a fancy adjustment on my camera without testing it first, with the result that these look flat to me. I couldn't do a lot with them in processing. That'll teach me.

 This is a CCC-built overlook. Doesn't it look like a castle?

Way over on the right of the overlook is what I thought was a telescope. It's not but it's an ingenious scope of a different kind. These curves are cut into an arc of steel and have a caption of what the view is. Move the scope to each curve and zero in on a different view. Low tech, high cool.

This is the view when the scope is nestled in the arc above the "rounded peak" caption above.

The CCC were a productive bunch. Here are statistics from a Visitor Center exhibit about them. I've seen their work in nearly every park I've visited, especially in the southwest.

I think, though, that the Value of Work statement might be a mistake. Instead of $21 today, I'm sure they meant $21 billion.

Eighty-six percent of Chiricahua National Monument is designated Wilderness. The Wilderness Act of 1964, (making it 50 years old this year), defines it as "an area of undeveloped Federal land retaining its primeval character and influence without permanent improvements or human habitation, which is protected and managed so as to preserve its natural conditions . . . ." Which means no development, no roads, no porta-loos, no concessions. I think it's pretty nice that 53% of all Park Service lands have been thus designated.

After we made our tour we stopped for a picnic lunch and were visited by some gray-breasted jays.

It was time to leave when we were presented with this.

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Thought of the day:

If future generations are to remember us with gratitude rather than contempt we must leave them with more than the miracles of technology. We must leave them a glimpse of the world as it was in the beginning, not just after we got through with it. - Lyndon Johnson