NOGALES AND SANDEI 1/26-29/2011

 Arrived at Sandei Jackson's (Wayne's God Parent's daughter) house in the evening of Jan. 26th, parked in her driveway.  We had a combined dinner of soup, salad and bread.  Yummy!   Then we visited late into the night before retiring to our trailer for a night of longed for sleep.
The nights have been getting chilly, down into the 20's.  Not the weather we want for our winter!  But the days are in the 60's and 70's.  That's the place we like!

 The 27th, while Sandei slaved away at work, we went back (We had gone there yesterday for a quick look, but it was late in the day, so we decided to go back.) to the Tumacacori Mission for a more extensive day of looking and touring.  We were very impressed with the history here and how early in the settling of this area the Spanish were involved!  This mission was also established by Father Kino at the same time as the San Xavier Bac Mission.  It is the sister mission to it, but this one has not been kept up and is not used today as a church.  It is a Federal Historical Monument.

We spent most of the day here on a guided tour and wandering around after.

The fruit garden and fountain was a nice restful place.  While there, we decided to purchase an annual National Parks and Federal Recreational Lands Pass so we can see more of these wonderful federal historical places as we travel.  We are not old like Ron and Liz, so we had to pay a lot more that they did.  3 more years and we will be able to get an old geezer one for cheap!

That night we went out to dinner at the Kino Springs Country Club.  It was a very snazzy place with all the right ambiance and the food was wonderful.  This was once the the historic Estancia Yerba Buena Ranch and estate of Stewart Granger and Jean Simmons.  There are few places we recommend as places to visit, but this is one!  In fact, Wayne's brother, who writes for Golf Today Magazine, did an article on this golf course and club in the November 2010 issue.  You can see it at http://golftodaynw.com/november-2010-issue/.  Turn to page 27 for an interesting read on this place.

The next day, Jan 27th, Sandei put on her tour guide hat and took us in her new truck on a tour of her stomping grounds, which included a tour of theVista Grande Ranch, which once belonged to her uncle.

We went to the "wall" on the Mexico/US border.  You can see the small old one and the new one.  The locals say the new one and the stepped up Boarder Patrol is really helping to keep illegal aliens from crossing the border. 

Here we are in Mexico.  We were illegal, as we did not have our passports with us at the time!  Now we can say we have been from Alaska to Mexico during our travels in the last 9 months!

With Ann in the forefront, it gives a little perspective of the size of this wall we erected to protect our citizens from illegals entering our country.

This current border was established by the Gadsden Purchase on December 30, 1853 when the US ambassador to Mexico purchased what is now the lower portion of Arizona and New Mexico for $10 million ($243,629,630 today).  This marker is there to commemorate this trancastion.

The Boarder Patrol at work.

A 200 year old mesquite corral that is still used today on the ranch.

Near a retired silver mine we had our picnic lunch.  Nice, nice, nice!!!

The left overs of the mine.

The Spanish were here a long time before we were.  I used to think that teaching Oregon pioneer history was amazing and so full of interesting stories.  But Arizona has Oregon topped in this area.  The history begins so much further back in history!

A deserted border crossing spot.

The land and its flora is so diverse here.  This is part of a cattle ranch dating back hundreds of years.  This ranch is where the movie Big Country was filmed.  After we got back to Sandei's place, we had a delicious dinner of ham and beans and watched the movie, that Sandei just happened to have that was filmed where we had been that day.

A wonderful time we had with Sandei, but it was time to get on our horse, so on Saturday morning (Jan 29th) we hitched up and headed east on Hwy 82, stopping along the way to explore creeks, little towns and such.

The road was easy and the scenery was magnificent.

We arrived in St. David after turning north on I-80 and pulled in to St. David RV Park for 5 nights of hookups.  When we were sitting on out trailer that night, surrounded by electricity galore and other niceties brought about by being in an RV park with hook ups, we realized that we had gone 10 nights dry docking on our own batteries and water.  We giggled at our enjoyment of "Power".
It has gotten very cold here and it even rained some, so we are happy for full hook ups and electric heaters.