10

It was such a nice sunny warm morning I decided to take a ride over to the other side of the mountain. I was just starting up the pass over the Dragoon Mountains when I met this guy putting along. His name is Lonnie and he lives down in Sunsites where he is building a house.

The east side of the mountain is similar to the west side where I am camped. It might be a little more open and there is a lot more space over there.

The roads were nice and there were lots of places to camp. The only problem I can see is that the road getting in there is longer and rougher and the big item for me is that you have to wait longer for the sun to come up over those mountains.

We rode toward the end of the road and came upon this huge place. The road that used to go through all the way around the mountain now is gated with video cameras and I bet these places are pretty spendy

. We continued on up the little road to the end where the trail from the campground on the other side comes out over here. This was a good place to have a little snack and have some time to visit and get to know each other. Lonnie is from Washington and he is a retired welder. His wife is still up in Washington and working part time.

Lonnie’s bike is a Baja 200cc made in China. It doesn’t come with a speedo so he doesn’t know how many miles on it but the rear tire is about worn out. Lonnie has two Harleys, one a glide and the other a sportster. This little Chinese bike cost about $1500 and it sure did get along the trail. In fact it was doing the little trails much better than the Fatdog.

The roads back over the mountain and down into the valley were fast and fun to run.

The battery in the Fatdog was going south and I had to make a run into Tucson to get a new one. I stopped in at the BMW shop and was surprised to find out that they actually did have a BMW battery for my bike. It was a sealed one too but it had only a one year guarantee. I knew that the Odyssey battery had a two year warrantee so I dedided to go get one of those from a battery store. There was some interest in the Fatdog from the sales and parts guys I think because there must not be many airheads in the area. I swung around out back and snapped this of the yard. Not an airhead in the bunch, and all of them pretty shinny and polished up.

The salesman was promoting a R1200S for me to take home but I knew it wouldn’t like the gravel roads I live on. Actually I didn’t have $16,000 with me. He didn’t offer to let me ride it. There was a highway patrolman by the parts counter and we talked a while. He was really nice and rode a 1200 but I don’t remember which kind. Those guys can be really nice even with a uniform on when they haven’t got you pulled over writing in their little ticket books. The Arizona Highway patrol rides BMW’s and he said his was a 1150 and he thought it weighed over 600 pounds but felt like 800. They are now buying 1200 models.

It was another nice sunny day so I decided to go over and check out the Cheer-ah-cow-ah (that is not the way they spell it but that is the way it sounds) national monument that is just across the valley from the Stronghold.

There are some really interesting rock formations. Straight across the Sulphur Springs Valley is the Cochise Stronghold where I am camped.

The road went up about seven thousand feet I think to the top where there are some hiking trails and scenic overlooks. There are lots of these balanced rocks. You can just see in the background some snow covered mountains. There is a road over these mountains and when I was planning this little trip I thought I would just make a quick look at the Cheerahcowah deal and then make a swing over the mountains and make a loop back to camp. I talked with the gals at the info desk and they said the forest service guys came up last week and took a look and told them that they would be back in a couple of weeks with a cat and see if they could punch the road open. They said “don’t even think of it”. After looking the situation over from up here I decided to quit thinking about it. I don’t carry chains for the bike nor have snow studs in the tires. Too bad as it would make a nice ride I am sure.

From this monument I went on up north a few miles and came to the Bowie National Monument. This is a historical site where there was a spring and a couple of military forts and stage stops in the early days. It is interesting that General Miles, the guy that Miles City is named after, was down here when they were having Indian problems with the apaches, namely Cochise and Geronimo. I forget exactly what happened but evidently Gen Miles was able to get things straightened out. The Indians got screwed as usual.

On the way back to camp I went down through the Sulphur Springs valley and found a bunch of farming operations. There is a lot of hay grown as well as some cotton and evidently beans. I talked with one guy and he said that they grow a lot of peppers here too. There are a few pistachio orchards and pecan groves several places around the area.

At the end of this yard is the calf nursery. I don’t have any idea how many are here but it sure seems like a crappy deal for these little calves to be stuck in one of these little pens and not be able to get out and play in the field.

I thought this was interesting historical marker. It is interesting that the early Indians were farmers. I think I read that the apaches knocked them off to get their land.

I made it back to camp and was taking a nap when I heard an amblulance come roaring up the canyon with his siren on. A little latter I heard a chopper coming in and looke up and saw that they had something hanging on a long line below it. There is a heliport area not far from my camp so I got on the bike and went over to check it out. Evidently an 18 year old girl had fallen and hit her head and had some other pretty serious damages. While I was there another chopper came in that is a flight for life unit. They were able to get her inside this chopper and didn’t have to have her swinging on the end of a rope in a stretcher on the way to the hospital.

I was sitting in the pod when I noticed some headlights just outside and walked out to see what was happening. It was a young couple in a pickup and they said that they had some friends down at their camp and had a lot of food (elk chile) and would like to invite me to come on down and join them. Wow, would I ever! They were a really nice group of folks and they turned out to be mountain climbers and they travel around climbing rocks. I had made a little silver cross a week or so ago and had it sitting on my work bench. I don’t know why I made it, sometimes things just happen. It turns out that they are Christians and are in some sort of loop traveling along climbing with other Christians. I knew why I made it now!!! I told Willie to come on down in the morning as I had something for him. He showed up with his dog that they picked up while on a climbing tour of Mexico. It is a really nice little dog that they got from a vet down there. I guess the vet was working on the dog because it only has one eye. I got to pet it a little bit but it still has some of that street wariness from living in Mexico.