God's Country Redux

Our daughter Sarah and her husband, Matt, spent the Christmas holidays with us this past year. Sarah is working on a PhD from the University of Wisconsin in German literature. One of her authors is a German by the name of Karl May. 15-20 years ago we went to Tombstone with one of our German exchange students and our girls and discovered a Karl May exhibit in the Tombstone Courthouse. We knew nothing about him abut the Germans did. Since then the exhibit had been moved to a small shop on a side street. Sarah thought it was probably closed but wanted to check it out. Anyway, we planned an expedition for a week ago yesterday.

The map above shows Gods Country, also know as Southern Arizona. We left Mesa , not shown on the map but about 100 miles north of Tucson, about 0830. Our first sight-seeing stop was San Xavier del Bac, an old Spanish mission just slightly south of Tucson on interstate 19. While visible from the Interstate, one should take the exit and visit the mission. There are three photos of the mission shown below, one an overall view, one of the door handle to the main door, and the third shows the courtyard, located behind the long white wall to the right(east) side of the mission.

From San Xavier we got back on I-19 and drove south to Tubac. Tubac is now an art colony located at the site of the original Spanish garrison or presidio in Arizona, established in 1752. There is one store there that we really like, La Paloma. They have a fine selection of pottery from Mexico, Central and South America as well as clothing and some other arts and crafts. The first photo is an overall view of La Paloma and the second of a parrot that clearly belongs at our house. I just need to figure out a place to put him. We did get a few small pieces of pottery and Sarah got a scarf.

After saying good-bye to my bird we got back on the highway and drove a few miles south to Tumacacori Natioinal Monument. Like San Xavier Tumacacori was started as a mission by Father Kino in the late 17th century. Apache depradations were so bad that it was abandoned in the mid 19th century. The photo below is taken just outside the mission office/museum.

Outside the photo to the right under a ramada a woman was demonstrating tortilla making. She cooked the tortillas on a flat metal grate over an open fire and then put beans on the tortilla and rolled it up. Umm, good! That was lunch.

We then continued south to Nogales, got on highway 82 and headed north-east through Patagonia and Sonoita to Tombstone.

The first photo below is what purports to be the OK Coral, where the gunfight took place. When I worked in Tombstone in the 1950's there was a sign stuck on a post in a vacant lot saying it was the site of the famous gunfight. Now that general area is all fenced with a high solid fence and you can see bleachers above the fence where for a fee you can watch a re-enactment of the gunfight.

The next photo shows Sarah standing outside the Karl May museum, now closed and with nothing inside. Karl May was a German writer, born in 1842 and died in 1912. He was a very prolific writer and wrote a number of novels about the American West, despite the fact that he had never been there. His best known western characters were an American Indian named Winnetou and a white man called "Old Shatterhand". He was a very popular writer. He also wrote other stories about places he had never been such as the orient. Six movies featuring Old Shatterhand and Winnetou were filmed in Yugoslavia between 1963 and 1968. These movies starred Lex Barker, Pierre Brice, Elke Sommer, Herbert Lom as well as others. Karl May finally visited the East coast of the United States in 1908, but never got near the West.

The photo below shows may favorite marker from the Boot Hill Cemetery in Tombstone.

We left Tombstone and drove through St. David and Benson before picking up I-10 and driving to Tucson. In Tucson we stopped at Molina's Midway, the best Mexican restaurant ever. Molina's is located on Belvedere, just north of Speedway. It opened in a small house in 1953, about a year after I moved to Tucson. In the photo below we are eating carne seca gorditas, carne seca chalupas, a carne seca burro and green corn tamales. Wowzer!!!

From Molina's we drove home, arriving about 10 pm. 13 and 1/2 hours and 500 miles from when we left. Nevertheless, a great trip.

Other Southern Arizona blog entries by the Old Cowboy include:

Cutting Horses I have Known 4/27/14
A Little Bit of God's Country 1/13/14
Florence...Arizona, That Is 7/18/13
San Xavier Redux 4/14/12
A Perfect Day 1/7/12
Tumacacori 4/16/11
San Xavier del Bac-"The White Dove of the Desert" 1/22/10

A Little Bit of God's Country

God's Country extends from just south of Casa Grande, Arizona to the Mexican border and east to the New Mexico boundary. It contains such wonders as Tucson, San Xavier Mission, Tumacacori, Tubac. Nogales and numerous others. This post will take in several places not touched on by me before.

The first of these is Kartchener Caverns State Park located near Benson. Kartchener Caverns is a living limestone cave discovered by two spelunkers in 1974 who were investigating a crack in the ground on a hillside. They worked with a local rancher, the Kartchener family on whose land the cave was found, to turn it over to the State of Arizona if the State would agree to make a State park out of it and do everything necessary to preserve it. This was agreed on finally and the State developed it into a State park, while preserving the caverns. In order to protect the cave, the entrance is through an airlock, which helps preserve the moisture in the cave. Access is limited and cameras, bags, etc not allowed in. The cave is much like a living organism; stalactites and stalagmites are still growing. The first photo below is of the airlock entrance with a people mover train outside. The second is of the Big Room in the cave. It is the only photo I could find that was not copyright protected. They have started doing a few tours for photographers(personal use only), limited to 15, for $175 per head. A little steep for my blood. Oh, well. It is a great place to visit-I highly recommend it.

Tombstone is about 50 miles or so southeast of Kartchener Caverns. Tombstone is anything but a ghost town even if it is the town made famous by Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday and the OK Corral. It is somewhat touristed up but fun nevertheless. The first photograph shows some of the old buildings. The second one is of the Courthouse. Tombstone was the first county seat of Cochise County. After the big mines got going in Bisbee it was moved to Bisbee, where it is today.

The next two shots are of Allen Street, which back in the day was the main street. In the first one you will note the OK Corral on the left. The site of the gunfight was in a vacant lot next to the livery stable named the OK Corral. Back when I was a college student and working some in Tombstone it was still a vacant lot with a small sign that said it was the site of the famous gunfight. Now it is enclosed with a high fence, and bleachers are installed so one can watch re-enactments of the gunfight. For a price, of course.

One of my favorite places in Tombstone is Boot Hill Cemetery. It is pretty much the way I remember it. The grave markers shown below are my favorites, including the McLaury-Clanton burials from the OK Corral gunfight.

This next photo is taken from Boot Hill looking northeast. The rocky mountain in the left center of the picture is Sheep's Head Mountain. I had a friend who had a nice ranch there; it ran into the mountains. The other side of the mountain gets you to Pearce and the Sulphur Springs Valley and the Chiracahua country.

Bisbee is located about 40 miles southeast of Tombstone and is/was a mining town. A huge copper mine was located there, both an open pit called the Lavender Pit and an underground mine called the Copper Queen.Both were owned and operated by the Phelps Dodge mining Co. In the 1960's or early 70's the mine shut and Bisbee threatened to become a ghost town. Hippies discovered it and moved in in droves. Now it's sort of an artists' colony. Fun place.

Below is a photo of the Lavender Pit. You can stop active mining, but there's not a hell of a lot you can do with this size hole in the ground.

Below is the Copper Queen Hotel. Good food, good place to stay. It was built by Phelps Dodge in 1898-1902 to provide a place for the big shots from the East to stay. It's rumored to be haunted.

Below is a typical miner's house. Bisbee is built in a canyon in the Mule Mountains; many of these houses do not have streets that you can drive on to get to them. I owned one in the late 70's that my wife wanted to use as a studio.

The last time I was at the Copper Queen the front desk clerk recognized me and reminded me that she had been our receptionist at the Cochise County Health Department when I was the Director. The County condemned the old high school as unsafe and gave it to the Health Department for use as our offices. The first photo below is of the main entrance to the high school; the second one shows the entrance to my office. My actual office was a class room with only my desk in the middle of the room with an electrical outlet and a phone.

I think the manhole cover shown below is handsome and reminds me of some of the things I was responsible for as Health Department Director.

The three photos below are of a car in a parking lot in Bisbee decked out as a campaign advertisement for Hillary Clinton for 2016. What the stuff on top is or what relevance it has to Hillary I haven't the slightest idea.

Heading due west from Bisbee about 40 miles you come to the western end of the Huachuca mountains, barely on the American side of the US-Mexico border. At the southern tip of the mountains is Coronado National Monument. It is thought that Coronado, the Spanish explorer came this way in about 1540. There is a road that leads to the top of a pass, with good views to the southeast towards Douglas and Mexico, the first photo below,  and a good view to the northwest towards Baboquivari Mountain and my old cattle ranching area, the second photo below.

No trip to God's Country is complete without a stop at Molina's Midway, the best Mexican restaurant in the Southwest. They are located in Tucson on N. Belvedere , one half block north of Speedway. One does not go to Tucson on Mondays; Molina's is closed on Monday. There is a rumor going around that the OWH camped in their parking lot for three days and then claimed they had been camping in the Chiracahuas all that time. May not be true, but it would be one good idea!

San Xavier Redux

The San Xavier Mission,just south of Tucson, continues to be one of my favorite places to visit and photograph(see blog entries of 1/22/10 San Xavier del Bac--”The White Dove of the Desert” and 1/7/12, A Perfect Day). A couple of days ago the Old White Haired Guy and I drove to San Xavier for a photo shoot. I had wanted to photograph mostly interior details, and had not wanted crowds. The wind was awful, probably about 40 miles per hour, but that didn't matter since we were going to do interior shots anyway. It was after Easter so I figured all the snow birds and other tourists would have headed back to Iowa, Wisconsin, Canada, etc. Wrong! They all went to San Xavier for one last look on their way to wherever. Including tours. We did get a few shots inside and a few detail shots outside before we gave up. Anyway, here are some more of San Xavier.

The shots below were taken from the same point, a hill to the east of the mission where they hold Easter sunrise services. The camera was on a tripod and not moved. They were taken between about 0700 and 0750. The top left is the first one and the bottom right the last. Time wise they go left to right first row, then left to right second row and finally left to right last row.



I managed to get a few interior shots before the hordes arrived but nowhere near what I wanted. Below is a shot from the front of the church looking towards the altar with the side door open. The front door is behind me, closed and locked because of the wind.



This little angel is on a pillar near the front door.



That ended the inside shots. The milling herd came in and made tripod photography impossible. We went outside only to be greeted by 40 mph wind, limiting what we could shoot. It was virtually impossible to mount a telephoto lens and keep it steady, even on a good tripod. We did get a few nice shots, though, by playing with the sun.

The photo below is of where the crossing is and the dome above the altar seen from the west side near the side door.



The next two photos are of the west bell tower, taken from the west side.





The photo below is of the front door. This door is made of mesquite, and as far as I know, is the original. The next photo is of the door handle; the part of the handle that you grasp is a rattlesnake.





We packed up and guess what? Right! Just in time for lunch at Molina's Midway. Carne seca gorditas and green corn tamales! Mahvelous, simply mahvelous!

San Xavier del Bac--"The White Dove of the Desert"

San Xavier is an old Spanish mission located a few miles south of Tucson, just off the Nogales highway, on the Tono o'Odham reservation. I'm sure the highway has a number but having grown up in Tucson it's just the Nogales highway. I have been visiting San Xavier ever since I was a wee lad. For me this remains one of the favorite places that I have ever seen.

San Xavier was established in 1699 by Father Eusebio Kino, a Jesuit who established a string of missions in northern Mexico and southern Arizona. The original mission was about two miles north of the current building, and was destroyed by the Apaches in 1770. In 1775 a Presidio was established at Tucson which provided military protection. The current building was constructed by Franciscans with Tono o'Odham labor between 1783 and 1797. It came under the Mexican government in 1822. In 1828 the Mexicans ordered the expulsion of all Spanish born priests, which included the priest at San Xavier. The Tono o'Odham people attempted to keep the building in repair until it came under US jurisdiction in 1853 with the Gadsden Purchase. In 1859 the Archbishop of Santa Fe assumed ecclesiastical jurisdiction, sent a priest and diocesan money for restoration. It has had priests ever since.

Bac means "place where the water flows". Water from the Santa Cruz river bubbles to the surface near here, hence the name. The photo at the top of this blog looks to me like what it may have looked to a weary traveler approaching through the desert from the south, perhaps coming from Nogales or the mission at Tumacacori. This would have been a very dangerous trip. The Apaches forced abandonment of the mission at Tumacacori. The trail was called "From Tucson to Tumacacori to Hell" for good reason.
The mission appeared on the horizon like a white dove to give safety and comfort.



The photo above was taken from a small hill just east of the mission.This was taken about sunrise, before the sun had touched the building. The mission has been undergoing restoration/maintenance. Sometime in the past the white exterior plaster had been replaced with concrete based stucco, which turned out to be bad for the building because it trapped moisture. It is being replaced by mud plaster using the traditional Tono o'Odham recipe which includes cactus pulp. Most of the exterior is now finished except the east bell tower, as you can see by its dirty appearance, and the facade. This tower was never finished off with a cupola. The photo below is taken from the same vantage point about 20 minutes later.



The architect is unknown. The style is Moorish, Byzantine and late Mexican renaissance. The photo below is taken about 45 minutes after sunrise from a more southerly vantage point.



The photos below show restored and unrestored windows, on the west and east bell towers, respectively.





When I first visited San Xavier the interior was very dark and dingy. Two centuries of candles, probably torches for light, heat and time had a major effect on the decorations, statues, paintings etc. In the mid 1990's a major interior restoration effort was undertaken. Artisans were brought from Italy, who had worked on restorations of the Vatican, Sistine Chapel, etc. The restoration is now complete, but about two months of every year they do maintenance/restoration where needed. Below are some photos of the interior.

This photo is just inside the door looking toward the apse and main altar.



This angel is on a pillar at the crossing.




The pastoral painting below is above the arch near the altar.



The choir loft is shown in the photo below.



This angel, painted on the corner of an arch, has the look of a Mexican peasant woman or possibly a Native American. A favorite image of mine.



Main entrance door, made of mesquite wood.