Tombstone and Bisbee on the Agenda

We rolled out of Canyon Vista, late morning, yesterday.  Our destination was further south; east of Tucson; to the town of Benson, AZ.  

Another sunny and warm day as we prepared to leave Gold Canyon, AZ

Gerry and Pauline came over to say bye bye.....but Gerry hung out with us till we left.  He was interested in the motorcycle swivelwheel and to discover just how easy it is to load the motorcycle on the deck and tie it down.

Nice, slow, crawl up the ramp and the motorcycle is locked into the into the wheel chalk.

By 11:00 am, our wheels were rolling away from Gold Canyon.  We drove east on I-60 to the Florence, AZ, Highway 79 turn off. It was a very good travel day.  Traffic was light.

Just east from Gold Canyon

About 60-70 minutes into our drive south, we pulled into a quasi rest stop to check our fiver/swivelwheel and for lunch.  We had the place to ourselves.  The plaque, below, memorializing Tom Mix, was interesting.  He was an early  American film actor who died at this very spot.

Tom Mix - Actor 

Thomas Edwin "Tom" Mix was an American film actor and the star of many early Western movies. Between 1909 and 1935, Mix appeared in 291 films, all but nine of which were silent movies.   

Born: January 6, 1880, Mix Run, PA 

Died: October 12, 1940, Florence, AZ   

Children: Ruth Mix, Thomasina Mix  

Spouse: Mabel Ward (m. 1932–1940), More  

Parents: Edwin Mix, Elizabeth Mix

Tom Mix survived a roll over, only to die when a chest fell on him after he extricated himself from the wreck.  The falling chest broke his neck.  The accident happened near where we were parked.

Highway 79 south is a great two lane highway.

It was slow going through the city of Tucson.  Traffic lights do not seem to be synched well and we had to stop at most city crossings.  It wasn't a problem - just very slow going!  Once we had reached I-10, we took the overpass east and towards the town of Benson towards the Pato Blanco Lakes RV Resort.  

Downtown Tucson ....from far back.

Tucson

Traffic on I-10 was heavy - very heavy,  I-10 is the main link from Tucson to El Paso, Texas.  Trucks easily outnumbered cars, so it seemed!

The Kartchner Caverns is one of the attractions we plan to visit while in this area.

It wasn't long before we arrived at the Pato Blanco RV park, in Benson, AZ.  Once registered, we were directed to our very long pull through site.  The entire park is on gravel.  All sites are quite level - with all services; including 50 amps.  We are in a natural bowl, or valley - surrounded by trees and hills.  It is quite pretty.  We'll spend some time walking around here before we head out for our planned ride to Bisbee and Tombstone today.

Our level, pull through site.

Now.....the big surprise here was the welcome wagon!  These folks are so pleasant and refreshingly accommodating.  We had just registered when we were invited to the weekly pot luck dinner in the club house.  Realizing that we had just arrived and had hardly completed our set up, we were told not to prepare anything and to just join in.  Well, Jeanette did put together a really nice appetizer cheese plate and we walked up to the club house for 5:30 pm.  What a feast!  And we got to meet everyone here.  We would sadly fail the names recall test today though!

About 1/3rd of this park is hosting Canadians from Nova Scotia to BC.  We were the BC bookend.  We had just rolled in when an RVer from Saskatchewan let us know that we were the Province that was not represented here.  Funny!!!! 

At the pot luck.

A couple from Calgary, Alberta, was the big push to have us join in the pot luck. So was the park management. And we are thrilled that they put some mild pressure for us to attend.  We ate well and had a good time.  It reminded Jeanette and I of a small town get together.  We did not feel like strangers!

We woke up to cloud and sun this morning.  The forecast is for a cooling trend but we do plan to unload the motorcycle and roll in to Tombstone and Bisbee.  We plan to make a reservation to visit the Karchner Caverns in the next day or so.

That's it from here!

Thanks for dropping by.