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The Cruise--Details

I didn't include more details in the prior "The Cruise" post for two reasons. 1)  I didn't think anyone would be interested; and 2)  This trip didn't include much of the normal topics:  good beer, good coffee or John-style travel. But there are details, which may be useful to some people contemplating how such a trip is put together. On the first day of the trip, we drove three hours to pick up my mother in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.  At 85, she isn't comfortable driving for long distances and hadn't flown for many years. We then drove 3 1/2 more hours to Chicago, where we checked into the Wyndham, where you can get a room that includes the cost of parking for up to 12 days.   We were up early on the hotel shuttle to O'Hare, where we then boarded the a non-stop American Airlines flight to New Orleans. Here, we checked into a Hampton Inn near the port.  My mother was pretty tired, so Julia and I went out for a Cajun dinner and live music.   Rememberi...

Bisbee: Hiking Cochise Stronghold

 From February 2022

On February 18th, we drove north and east from Bisbee for a little over an hour to the Coronado National Forest. The Stronghold Trail has been on my bucket list for a long time, and it did not disappoint.

The four mile dirt road in was heavily rutted.  There is a national forest campground at the trailhead, and I spent some time talking to a Scamp owner before the hike.  Even though it was a weekday, the campground was full.

It was a perfect day for hiking.


The terrain was rugged.  Cochise and his group of 1000, including 250 warriors, were obviously tougher than the day hikers who spend time here now trying to capture some of the spirituality of place.


Cochise was never conquered in battle and lived in the stronghold for about 15 years.  His body was secretly buried somewhere within.  Sounds a lot better to me than a gravestone or a monument.

This is a 9 mile out and back trail.  We just did the eastern half of it to the divide and then came back the way we came.


 

The last picture was where we spent some time.  I like to think that Cochise's people thought this particular spot was special too. 


Comments

MFH said…
Glad to see you got there!
John said…
Yeah, it's time to stop reading about some of these places and time to start going there. This was a special one that I'd like to repeat.
greg said…
My experience with that campground was the same. Seems like a lot of the less pretentious snow-birds use this as part of their rotating 14 day stops.

There's also some Scamp-able boondocking spots on the west side of the divide along fr687
John said…
Thanks. I made a note to myself for the boondocking on the west side of the divide.

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