The Chiricahuas and Portal, AZ

At the risk of repeating what Al the Stargeezer wrote Monday night, here’s our story about Tuesday’s visit to Portal, AZ and the Chiricahua Mountains.
We are parked in Rusty’s RV Ranch
in the late afternoon shade of the Chiricahuas,

and Portal AZ is just nine miles away. And Portal is the “portal” to Cave Creek Canyon, a spectacularly scenic part of the Coronado National Forest.

The main draw in Portal is this tiny Portal Store, Cafe and Lodge.

We had been told they have excellent pie, so we had to stop. Since it was lunch time, we split a plate of great home made red chili tamales, and each had a slice of lemon meringue pie.

The rest of the town consists of a post office

and the Myrtle Kraft Library, founded in 1978 in the old schoolhouse, by the lady whose name it now bears.

The old gas station is closed.

The real scenery began as we entered the Coronado National Forest just west of town.

There are several campgrounds in this area, but most were closed for the season. The Sunny Flat Campground was open, and we took advantage of the restrooms before taking our scenery pictures.

At another spot, we took a short trail to Cathedral Vista. Splendid!


Everywhere we looked, and around every bend in the road, there was outstanding scenery! We stopped the car and got out over and over again.


We found the south fork of Cave Creek flowing merrily along. Suzy’s camera grabbed this clip of the flowing stream, with my comments obliterating any hope of you hearing the music of the water.

[Last minute edit: We were unable to load this video clip, don't know why. So, we'll show you a still picture of the creek, and you can pretend to see it flowing along and making happy little sounds.]

Before returning to Rosie, we drove south a little to the tiny town of Rodeo, NM. Abandoned by the Southern Pacific Railroad in 1952, the town shows serious signs of deterioration. One bright spot, however, is this home, labeled “Casa Adobe.” It’s entryway is a delight, and the back gate has its own special charm.


Then Wednesday, we visited the nearby Chiricahua Desert Museum. It’s only been open a few months, and  they are currently preparing a special room for live exhibits of desert reptiles and amphibians. We’ll return some time next year to show you that part.


There are so many more pictures we’d love to show you, but this blog is already too big. Please feel free to visit our albums of “Portal AZ and the Chiricahuas”  and the “Chiricahua Desert Museum” at  http://picasaweb.google.com/home.
Thursday we had planned to stop at Deming for a night, but we were having problems keeping our camera batteries charged, so we went to Las Cruces instead, to get new batteries. Now we have been having problems hooking up to the Internet, so we’ll get back to you some time soon in… Our Life on Wheels.