Pink Snakes, gold and a cemetery

Gold was discovered in the historic Pearce townsite in 1895, by 1920 the population was 1,500 and by 2000 the population was only 15, we didn’t find any gold though, although there is a really nice pottery.

and an old general store that is open each year on Pearce Heritage Days.

We stopped at Old Pearce Cemetery where the sign told us that the remains of Abraham Lincoln’s bodyguard, General Sherman’s adjutant, Union and Confederate Soldiers as well as colourful characters from Pearce’s heyday are buried.        

The holes in the rock underneath the sign were created when miners from the Commonwealth Mine used it to test their drill bits.

Lovely views of the Dragoon Mountains and the Chiricahua Mountains can be seen from the cemetery.

As we arrived at the cemetery a sign warned us to watch for snakes, so as I was wearing open toed sandals, I certainly did.

That still didn’t stop me nearly going into orbit when I walked along the path and a bright pink snake whizzed past my toes and disappeared among the gravestones.

Later, with big grins on their faces and after they’d all finished wondering just how I managed to miss a bright pink snake, (so did I!) I was told it was a racer snake, (no wonder it went so fast) and that it was perfectly harmless.   Oh well!

Have fun, we are!