January 2023 ~ Week #2

Today (Sunday) is rainy and windy here in Benson, AZ making this the perfect day to write and watch the NFL wildcard playoffs.  Congrats to the 49er (predicted) and to the Jags (crazy).    Worst wishes to Brady today, who Flynn cannot stand.

The quick and dirty summary of the Flynn and Ollie adventures (tourism type) this past week were as follows:

First up was a jaunt to Sierra Vista, which is where Fort Huachuca is located.   The goal was to visit the Buffalo Soldier Museum, a seemingly simply endeavor.   F&O navigated to the Fort via Google, which took Karl to the wrong gate of the base.  The efficient guard gave VERY specific directions to another gate, stopped all traffic and a u-turn they did make.   Clearly he had dealt with dumb tourists thousands of times.   The next gate was not nearly as simple, as F&O had to get passes which entailed waiting in a little room with a dozen others, no real line “memorize your place” strategy.   All went smoothy during the background check, interrogation, strip search, and fingerprinting so Flynn and Ollie were awarded the Green Paper of Prestige, a 14 day pass to the military base.  Fort Huachuca is an Army military base, and the specialty is military intelligence.  No secrets were identified or disseminated by F&O during their visit.

The museum is very well curated by volunteers, F&O were the only visitors, and had an enjoyable and educationable (new word) experience.   The staff even help set up for photo shoots on some exhibits.  Postcards were procured from the gift shop, and after exhausting the interior of the building, they took a stroll down the old parade grounds to get their steps in.  

The second major outing of the week was to Cochise Stronghold.  This place is legit gorgeous. There is a small and very well-maintained campground at the end of the access road, and Coronado National Forest where one can dry camp.   The maintained campground has a short paved interpretive loop and serves as the trailhead to several locations in the NF.  There are lots of trees, fauna, flora, and water in this area, so it makes total sense the Apache defended it so heartily. F&O did the mile hike up to the spring, sat on a giant boulder at the spring/river, and had lunch.   Going up was lots of work, but strangely enough, the mile back down was a breeze.  Huh.

The third outing was close to home: the Benson visitors center.  This is located in an old train station (next to the very active tracks), and has not only the usual visitors center type stuff, but also two model train sets that go circle the room inside. They have painted a mural of Benson on the walls and put a camera on the front of the train, so you can watch it on a screen as it travels around ‘Benson’.    Even better, they let you DRIVE the train from a REAL engineer control (refurb) connected to the G-train, complete with whistles.   Needless to say Ollie was in his element and is now a certified train engineer.

That is about all for adventures this week, as F&O are beginning to check-off most of their sight-seeing list here in the Benson area.    The editor of the Chronicle is considering another article this afternoon with commentary about RV life in general, so stay tuned for additional content.

Congrats CA on the end of your drought.  Tip from NW residents:  don’t bother with an umbrella, don’t drive through deep water, clean your gutters regularly.  

Fin

Flynn