Friday January 26th 2018

On some days I don’t have a clue what day it is until I sit down and write this blog entry. Today was one of those days. The power went out in the campground near bed time last night. After turning off everything that would draw down my batteries unnecessarily, I went to bed. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to sleep right away. I was thinking about the power outage and it was a little early. It all boils down to I didn’t get enough sleep last night.

Management fixed the power problem in about a half an hour, but it went out again during the night. The campground had more occupants last night than previous nights I’ve been here. My guess is there were some high current demands that overloaded the circuits. This is an older campground that was designed with sites to have 30amp circuits. In the last few years it has had some of the service upgraded to 50amps on select sites. The power that feeds the campground may need to be upgraded. As I was completing this blog entry, the power has gone out twice. They must have a more serious problem than overloaded circuits.

Neglected historical marker for Fort Huachuca. The actual active fort can’t be seen from the road. It serves as a better memorial than the marker.

Today’s temperature was in the mid sixties with a ten to fifteen mile per hour wind out of the north. Generally, it was very nice day. I took a site seeing drive south form Benson on the west side of the San Pedro valley. I went as far as the city of Sierra Vista. Along the way I stopped at the Historic Marker for the original Fort Huachuca. This was one of the forts established in the late nineteenth century to protect the miners, settlers and travelers to the southwest from the Apache Indians and Mexican insurgents. Fort Huachuca is unique among the forts. It is still a functioning Army Post today.

Mountains to the west of the valley, (Picture taken while driving)

The haze across the valley to the east. Can you imagine a cavalry patrol out there one hundred and thirty years ago?

This area is loaded with history.  I need to study up on the expansion of  settlers into the southwest.  The  conflicts with the native Americans have some memorable names like Geronimo attached to the legends.  It would be nice to come back to the area with some of the background needed to appreciate the historic sites.   Even without that knowledge it is easy to imagine cavalry patrols out in the valleys.

On the return I passed through another Boarder Patrol check point. There was another one just outside Tombstone on Tuesday. These are permanent structures not temporary ones. This one had more people on duty including a dog or two. I’m not sure if there focus is on people, drugs or what. All I experience is a glance inside the car and a pass through.