Friday, November 8
Mountain View RV Park
Today, we drove to Dwayne’s Fresh Jerky and Mountain View RV Park. The terrain was mountainous, but we mainly traveled through passes and long sandy valleys. Whenever we were in valleys, we saw signs warning us about possible sand storms and the procedures to follow when there was one.
Fort Bowie National Monument
The campground was behind a jerky store that was also a gas station. Once we got set up, we decided to go to Fort Bowie National Monument. To get out to the monument, we discovered that we had to go down a 1.5-mile trail from a parking lot in the middle of nowhere. Since it was marked easy, Lisa and I could easily walk it. It took us past the fort cemetery, a mock-up Indian village, and finally, to the visitor center where the ruins of the fort were. The visitor center was very nice and had two NPS rangers there. They had a few artifacts there, but the history of the Apache in the area was fascinating.
While at the visitor center, they suggested we visit the Chiricahua National Monument nearby. Unfortunately, it was getting late already, so we had to hurry our hike back to the truck and drive quickly to the National Monument.
Chiricahua National Monument
We got to Chiricahua with about an hour left of daylight. After quickly checking out the visitor center, we began our drive through the beautiful park. The rock formations, flowing creek, and turning leaves made the place gorgeous.
Evening
We left the park just as the sun set and saw the beautiful sunset all the way home. It was completely dark by the time we got back to our trailer.