To Tombstone

October 31, 2016

we spent the night in the historic Sonoita Inn, a surprisingly elegant western country lodge miles from the nearest significant population center. It was built by one of the owners of the famous race horse Secretariat, and it's walls are lined with memorabilia of the great horse.

It is a large, two story lodge but there is only one other guest. He's apparently a businessman, who left this morning about 6:30 so we have the hotel to ourselves for breakfast - the only staff left at 5 last night, with instructions. There is a decent serve-yourselves larder, with English muffins, a range of cereals, yogurt, fruit, even peanut butter. Perfect.

We eat early and are on the road by 8, hoping to get to Tombstone early in the afternoon to leave some time to look around before sundown. Our chosen 53 mile route goes southeast to Sierra Vista, and hen northeast to Tombstone.

It is a beautiful morning to ride. The temperature dropped significantly overnight, and was a chilly 46 when we woke this morning. With a forecast high of 75 and some prospect for a partial cloud cover, we're delighted to be moving on from the heat wave.

Our route begins on very quiet Highway 83. The first ten miles or so are generally flat, passing through a large, open grassland. There's almost no traffic, it's very quiet, and for the first time we regularly see birdlife as we bike along. Gradually we transition into a rolling, wrinkled landscape, almost steppe-like, with the terrain spotted with juniper and oak.

About fifteen miles into the ride, we leave Highway 83 and turn east toward Sierra Vista, our intended lunch stop for the day. After another half hour through increasingly hilly terrain, we are surprised to arrive at the entrance gate to Fort Huachuca. I knew it was out here, but had misread the map in planning this ride - I'd thought it was off route to the north a bit, but instead our road goes through the heart of the military reservation.

Disaster. This isn't a public road, and entrance is forbidden without a military-issued ID. After much discussion and pleading, it's clear that we can't enter. There's no choice but to turn back, and to bypass the reservation on highway 82 instead. We don't really know how far the route is in this direction (frustratingly, for reasons I won't go into here, we don't have a printed map and there's no map on our GPS devices (although the tracks are there). Our plan is to just start biking, and if we run out of daylight or energy we'll hitchhike the rest of the way. Fortunately another biker wheels up while we're there, and informs us that there is a paved shortcut through Elgin that will spare us bking all the way back to Sonoita.

Eastbound on Highway 83, direction Tombstone

At the west gate to Fort Huachuca. Nota bene: if you want to bike across the fort, you need a military-issued identity card. No exceptions. You can get one in Sierra Vista, which unfortunately is on the opposite side of the fort. We weren't aware of this, and had to backtrack and circle the fort on the north side. A costly planning error that added 22 miles to our day. And a question for the Arizona Highway Department - if you can't drive through on this highway without a military ID, would it hurt you to post this information somewhere along the highway?

Very disheartening, but it could be much worse. We're down here to ride, and it's a beautiful day and place for it. The worst part is not knowing the distance, and whether we'll find any place to get something to eat. We guesstimate 80 miles, but we really have no idea. One great thing though is that we handle it well as a couple - we don't make the situation worse by getting overly stressed or upset with each other over something we can't change. Nothing to do but ride.

After 12 miles backtracking toward Sonoita we come to the Elgin turnoff and turn north. Elgin and highway 82 are on our at least on our map, so we can roughly gauge our progress. It looks like about 8 miles to the highway, across flat, lovely grassland. It's midday by now and the winds are picking up and are thankfully in our favor. We make good progress as we barrel north across the plain.

Before long we arrive at Elgin. There's a winery with an open tasting room, so we pick up some useful information - it's roughly 30 miles to Tombstone, and there's a Shell station/convenience store about half way there. It's feeling like we'll make it before dark, assuming we keep being lucky with the winds.

After backtracking 12 miles from the fort, we come to Elgin Road, the shortest route to Highway 82 and the alternate route to Tombstone. We were relieved that this was here. If we'd had to go all the way back to Sonoita it would have added yet another 15 miles. Highway 82 is on the far side ot the mountains in the distance. We join up with it just to the left of them.

The greeter at the Elgin Winery. We stopped here to confirm directions and find out if there are any stores between here and Tombstone. It was a relief to hear that there was a Shell station fifteen miles the road, since we hadn't packed a lunch. We had planned to eat at Sierra Vista, on the east side of the fort.

A few more flat, fast miles on Elgin Road bring us to Highway 82. We turn east. Still barreling along at a good clip in front of a strong wind, we race toward our long awaited rendezvous with lunch: the Shell station in Whetstone, at the intersection with Highway 90. It is a busy road with not much shoulder, but we're making such good time that we don't really care. The landscape is dramatic and memorable: ahead of us is a broad creosote basin backed by the pinkish Dragoon Range.

The Shell station doesn't disappoint, meeting all our needs: clean bathrooms, water, milk, a microwave, and instant microwaveable meals. Rachael has a pizza pocket and I a microwaved omelet. Who could ask for more, miles from anywhere in the middle of the desert?

East on Highway 82, blown along by a great tailwind, imagining the feast in store for us at the Shell station just another 10 miles ahead.

Given our bad luck at the fort, we were really lucky today. We had a strong tailwind for the last 25 miles, much cooler temperature, and occasional cloud cover. If we'd been on this road in the heat of the previous days, we'd have had to stick out a thumb.

A monarch by the side of Highway 82, and just one out of many - there were about 30 of them on this showy goldenrod.

An hour later we pull into Tombstone and claim our room at the Larian Motel. I enjoy a prolonged conversation with Linda, the proprietor. She's interesting, engaged, warm, and full of interesting arcana. It's enough to make me look past the Trump sign out front. I'm so ready for this cursed election to be over so that folks can hopefully start taking each other at face value again.

In spite of our unexpectedly long ride, we've done pretty well. We arrived in Tombstone at Not long after 4, so after hurriedly showering (Linda suggested I should do that first and check in later, for some odd reason) we stepped out to look around at one of the most iconic towns of the old west. It's quite a show, but by far the best was the fact that it's Halloween and the streets are full of colorful, spooky characters. What could be more fitting than to spend Halloween in Tombstone.

In Tombstone, at last. We passed on this place and stayed at the nearby Larian Motel instead.

How great is this - we're in Tombstone on Halloween!

The county courthouse, Tombstone So is this just how it always is down here? There's been a great sunset and sunrise every day so far.

On our tabletop at the Longhord Cafe: you too could take up Grecian dancing.

On our tabletop at the Longhord Cafe: the perfect life preserver. A big selling point in southern Arizona,I'm sure.

Today's ride: 75 miles (121 km)
Total: 179 miles (288 km)

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