Bull Riding - Tombstone

The Bull Riding event started as everyone stood while the ranchers wife rode around the arena on horseback with the US flag. A high school girl from Sierra Vista sang the national anthem.

After each rider had drawn a bull, they were introduced to the crowd. On Saturday they were all from the local area, after that the contest began.

The bulls are run into the chutes; the bull rider then loops his well rosined rope around the neck of the bull, after that he climbs onto the bulls back and settles himself down, well as well as you can settle down on the back of a bull! The riders wear spurs, but the rowels are blunted rather than pointed, well would you want to stick points into the side of a bull?

Once the bull turns his head to the front of the chute the gate is opened and the bull leaps out.

The rider uses one gloved hand to hold onto the rope and the other is kept high in the air to keep his balance. Each rider is trying to stay on the back of the bull for 8 seconds.

8 seconds doesn’t sound long, but……………

Once the rider falls off, and he does, then he has to keep out of the way of flying hooves and sharp horns.

Bull fighters distract the bull so the rider has chance to get out of the way and then direct the bull to the exit chute.

These bulls are huge and weigh about 2,000 lbs you definitely wouldn’t want to get stomped on by one of them.

Needless to say I don’t think we’ll be taking this up as a new hobby!

Have fun, we are!

The Guindani (Godawful!) Trail - Coronado National Forest

The Guindani (Godawful!) trail in Coronado National Forest is just over 4 miles long, gains about 900ft in elevation and leads into and out of the wash in Guindani Canyon, is (supposedly) easy to follow, well marked and on the information we were given is also a mountain bike route.

We set off from the trailhead where it recommends long sleeves and long pants, but hey it’s a mountain bike route so we weren’t too worried about that after all how bad could it be?

The trail starts off as a single track, after about ¼ mile there is a sign directing you to the right along what looks like an old jeep road.

Not too bad, and it looks rideable on a mountain bike.

After a while the trail dipped down into the wash in Guindani Canyon, where it was definitely not rideable, but hey this was also a mountain bike trail so it wouldn’t last long, would it? Yes that really is the trail.

After all the rain in Arizona this summer it was very overgrown. You would definitely be carrying your bike down here! So it was a case of find the cairn and look for the next one before continuing, trying our best to avoid the mesquite, agave and other prickly stuff, not to mention the grasses all across the trail.

If anything the trail got worse, several times we climbed up out of the wash, the cairns and very faint trail became even more difficult to follow. No way could you ride a bike through this lot. We were getting scratched but imagine pushing through that in lycra, ouch!

Eventually, we climbed higher and thought this is it we’re out of the wash we must be climbing up to the viewpoint. Wrong! Once again we descended back into the wash.

We’d probably only come about 2 miles and were still in the wash! Considering it was supposedly an easy to follow trail there were hardly any trail signs and the trail just appeared to lead further back into the Whetstone Mountains. Lack of any real distinguishing features, apart from the wash didn't help either. It had taken us about 3 hours to reach this point and even though it was still early afternoon this time of the year the sun goes down quickly in these canyons and it is no place to be trying to walk out of in the dark.

So we decided that the best thing to do was turn around and retrace our steps back through all the pesky prickly stuff. That was easier said than done, because of course the trail was just as bad going back.

At one point we did wonder whether we should’ve struggled on, but I think we did the right thing because as we headed back dusk had already fallen in sections of the canyon where the sun had dipped below the top of the mountains. I don’t like the dark!

Once we got back to the jeep road we heaved a huge sigh of relief, we were back in the sunshine and didn’t have far to go to the truck.

It was around 4.30 p.m. when we finally got back to the truck, looking back we could see that the sun had completely gone from the canyon and darkness was falling fast, so we definitely did the right thing when we turned round.

This is a godawful trail/bike route and doesn’t appear to be particularly well walked or well maintained either, as for mountain biking, well maybe if you had a death wish!

We didn’t have fun on this godawful trail and were glad to get back to a nice chilled beer and margarita.

Have fun, we are!

Kartchner Caverns - Foothills Loop Trail

The Foothills Loop trail at Kartchner Caverns State Park is described as a moderately difficult trail climbing up the limestone hills north of the caverns entrance.

We took the right hand loop and headed down into the wash, following a fault between the Whetstone block and the San Pedro block. There are information boards along the way.

The first information board leads you to bedrock mortar a few yards off the trail which was used by Indians indigenous to the area for grinding corn.

We continued up to the scenic mountain viewpoint the view below is to the Dragoon Mountains on the other side of the valley.

Looking back into the folds of the Whetstone Mountains.

It was a nice trail around the mountain before dropping back into the wash and heading back to the car park.

As we were heading back on we saw a sign for a Coronado National Forest Trail called the Guindani Trail.

We enquired and were told it was slightly more difficult than the foothills loop trail, was well marked and easy to follow, so we decided to do that the next day. But that as they say is a whole other story!

Have fun, we are!

Once upon a full moon

Our torches made little impression in the darkness as we followed the faintly flickering light of carefully spaced luminarias down the deeply shadowed trail until we reached luminous skulls mounted on the gate posts.

A ghoul directed us into the school room where we were met by Miss Belle and her assistant.

We paid our entrance fee to Death and walked out to join the others around the campfire.

After a brief introduction the Preacher led us off into the darkness, endorsing us to stay close and warning us that a ghoul would bring up the rear to ensure no-one got lost. Although, he added, we might keep an eye out for the two people they lost last year.

We left Fairbank town site and followed the Preacher along the trail into the darkness. A little way along an axeman was tussling with his latest victim, further along the trail cowboys rushed past us in the darkness pursued by something we couldn’t see.

The darkness of the trail closed in around us again as we continued on our way, even with a full moon our flashlights shed little light in the intense blackness.

A faint keening sound reached our ears as the ghouls of ladies of the night tried to entice some unlucky guy to spend an eternity in their arms.

Further into the darkness, we reached the side trail to Fairbank Cemetery where a grave digger was carefully digging up graves to steal any valuables buried with the occupants.

The Preacher called us together and told us that this was a place of reverence and we were to respect those who were buried here, he’d lead the way we were to follow single file around the cemetery.

The night was clear and as we climbed from the darkness of the trail below the full moon brightly lit the cemetery and the surrounding area with ghostly shadows.

At the top of the hill a trumpeter was playing hymns so we walked around the cemetery listening to ‘Rock of Ages’ and ‘Abide with me’.

As we returned along the trail we again met the ghouls, the grave digger still looking for loot. The ladies of the night were singing ‘London Bridge is falling down’ and made us each walk under the arch created by their arms, wondering what was going to happen we very dubiously did and much to our surprise came out unscathed on the other side.

I don’t know what happened to the cowboys all that was left was a hat on the ground.

The axe murderer seemed to have been despatched by his intended victim, as she was now sharpening the axe.

Arriving back at Fairbank safe and sound we had soda in the school room and then once again followed the luminarias back to the dark car park where eventually we found the car and came home.

It was a fun evening and in the company of lots of other people we enjoyed our ghost walk, but nothing would get me along that trail in the dark any other way.

The only strange thing was I was sure I took a lot more photographs but some of them came out completely blank, now why is that I wonder?

Have fun, we are!

23 October - Packin' Heat

This weekend the Bordertown Shooters were holding a single action shooting contest at the Tombstone Livery just down the road, we went along to see what it was all about.

There were rifles and pistols galore, they were definitely packin’ some heat.

There were different shooting stages, one of which was speed and boy were they fast!

Each competitor had their own trolley complete with gun racks, ammunition containers and whatever else you need to clean and look after guns.

Vendors displayed all sorts of Western and cowboy related paraphernalia, clothes, saddles, weapons, customised brands and ammunition. I don’t think you’d ever see a display like this at an English county show!

At least not without a SWAT team!

It was definitely different and interesting to watch for a while, but as we don’t know anything about rifles or guns, we didn’t stay long before heading back to soak up the sun.

Have fun, we are!

10 October - Slight Change of Plans

When we came home in September we left our fifth wheel on site at Beaudrys RV Resort all ready for our return. Quite by chance we found out via Beaudrys website that the retail divison had closed but the service department and resort were to remain open. That was good. I googled to see what, if anything else I could find.

There was nothing definite but all the sites I found said that the resort was also due to close on 11 October and they had requested all rv’s be removed by 10 October. Naturally I found all this out on 10 October I called the resort it went straight to voicemail, PANIC! Of course it was Sunday, but even allowing for the time difference there should have been an answer.

First thing Monday morning we changed our return flights as we felt that we needed to return as soon as possible find out what exactly was going on and if necessary rescue our fifth wheel.

Late Monday afternoon (UK time) I got through to the resort and yes the resort was closing that day. I asked what about our fifth wheel that was stored on site and explained that the earliest we could get there was 19 October. We were given a name and number to ring when we arrived and were assured that someone would answer the phone and give us access to the resort so we could remove the Cougar,

Needless to say I spent the next week on tenterhooks wondering just what was going to happen when we arrived. I called on Friday afternoon, to reconfirm that we’d be there on 19 October and was so relieved when the call was answered especially when he confirmed we were expected. Huge sigh of relief!

On our way to the resort we called the number and the guy told us he’d had to go to Chandler and couldn’t meet us until early afternoon. Oh, Oh we thought is this the start of the run around? Thankfully it wasn’t we returned to the resort just after lunch and were admitted so we were able to hitch up and leave.

We found the closure notification dated 8 October, asking us to leave by 11 October taped to the door. Er, we were 6,000 miles away, they had all our contact details at home in the UK so why didn’t they call or email us? After all it’s not like we pop over on a weekend to check everything is OK.

While we were hitching up we counted at least 4 or 5 other rv’s still there whose owners obviously don’t know what’s happened, not to mention the 3 or 4 in the secure storage area.

What I don’t know is what would’ve happened if we hadn’t just happened to find out and had arrived at the resort knowing nothing fully expecting to get in and stay there? How long would it have taken us to get Cougar back then?

Apparently they hope to open the resort again, but have no idea if or when it’s going to happen It’s a nice resort in the middle of town and yes I’d stay there again, but I don’t think I’d store anything there again.

Once we’d hitched up we headed off to our favourite place, Tombstone Territories RV Resort while we figured out our travel plans.

We definitely weren’t having fun that week, but guess what, we are now!

Have fun, we are!

A taste of Autumn

In between the rain we have had some beautiful sunny autumn days, on one of which we took a stroll along the Shropshire Union Canal tow path.

Some of the leaves are starting to show their autumn colours.

The hedges are covered in sloes plenty of time to make the sloe gin and get it nicely matured for Christmas.

A deserted stretch of tow path, not a narrow boat in sight.

We walked along until we reached the point where the tow path crosses over the canal.

Once there we sat for a while on a nice comfortable seat, enjoyed the sun and watched a couple the narrow boats glide by.

Have fun, we are!