I have been to Arizona many times over the years since 2004 when a friend moved here. This time, though,
I was only in the extreme southeast corner of the state. I originally planned to drive from Big Bend
National Park in southwest Texas through New Mexico. But I noticed the two national park sites in the
southeast corner of Arizona. It added an extra four hours of driving but I decided to make a longer day
of it to get to those sites.
Fort Bowie National Historic Site -- this was pretty much a nothing after driving at 45 mph for 14 miles
and the last mile at about 10 mph over a bulldozer-treaded gravel road. I was the only one in the park
(well, at lesat, there were no other vehicles there). The fort had been dismantled decades earlier so all
that was left, after hiking a mile and a half down a mountainside, was a few foundational pieces. I skipped
the hike since too little to see there. Oh, and the paved 45 mph portion of the route has numerous cattle
crossings. All but one was smooth going over it.
Chiricahua National Monument -- this was a disappointing missed opportunity. I should have paid closer
attention to the route that Google Maps had shown while I was planning the trip. It showed one could
get from Fort Bowie to Chiricahua in fairly short order. Somebody forgot to tell that to Garmin. So
my Garmin was going to take me all the way back out of Fort Bowie, west on I-10 to Willcox, then south
to Chiricahua. That was going to add a couple more hours than I had planned. So, since I knew I still
had a five-hour drive to Albuquerque, I decided to use the extra time by going from Fort Bowie to the
hotel and have a chance to catch up on these notes and my other trip documentation. That is when I
looked again at Google Maps and noticed how incredibly easy it would have been to get from Fort Bowie
to this part site. Ouch!
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UPDATE: November 2021:
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I noticed I had a week in early November with nothing on my calendar -- a rarity. So I decided to go back
to Arizona (this time, flying, and, the weather in Arizona is tolerable!) to see some national parks, including
the above-mentioned missed Chiricahua. So I visited five:
Tonto (tried this in early 2019 but the airline delayed my flight by several hours which took away to opportunity to visit here)
Chiricahua
Coronado (on Mexican border)
Tumacacori
Casa Grande Ruins