Bisbee and Portal

First thing in the morning we headed down to the water to see the wildlife. We didn't see any Cranes, but we did see lots of other birds. The heron was fishing, and a little later caught a big fish in this murky water. The water level was really low, and the size of the lake was a fraction of its full size, so it is a wonder that such a big fish would be there. But as the heron went towards shore with its catch, she lost it! She was was really mad, you could tell, because she flapped her wings wildly after losing her breakfast. Too bad I didn't get a good picture of all this activity.

There were large bunches of other duck like birds that swam around with the heads under water most of the time.

Then, on returning to the motorhome, we found this owl perched up in the rafters of some sort of shelter that was nearby. He's just waiting for a mouse to venture into the shelter area!

After breakfast, we doubled back to Bisbee, the town we had just passed yesterday afternoon. It is built up and down the sides of the surrounding hills and mountains, with many long staircases connecting different parts of the town. At one time it was the largest town in the southwest; this big hole in the ground was its main reason to be - copper, plus a raft of other metals.

We wandered up and down the streets of the old town, which were lined with shops for Doreen to peer in, and quaint restaurants and cafes.

After being in Tombstone, where there were signs everywhere saying "such and such happened here in 1881" etc., we thought this sign at the entrance to one of the Bisbee shops was funny.

These pictures of one of the buildings in Bisbee are for Eric!

After wndering around Bisbee for an hour or two, we set off down Route 80, past Douglas (which is right on the border with Mexico), and up through a tiny place (a tiny store was about all that was there) called Portal, to a Forrest Service campground named Sunny Flats. The landscape all the way up to Portal was dry flat desert, with just scrubby brush. But in the two or three miles beyond Portal to the campsite just all of a sudden things changed to huge cliffs and deep valleys with big trees. The campground was the prettiest place you could imagine. It is hard to get a picture that shows this, however, because pictures tend to flatten out the landscape.

We actually entered into New Mexico for a short while going up Route 80, but then dipped back into Arizona just before Portal. But we seem to be on New Mexico time (Arizona doesn't go on daylight savings time) here - at least our GPS seems to think so. There's no AT&T connection here between the high mountains, so our adventures have to wait until tomorrow to be chronicled.