The Rogue Has Returned

We have just returned home from seven weeks on the road. I won’t say much about the trip because there is much to do around the house, Thanksgiving is coming, kids are coming for Thanksgiving dinner, company is coming tomorrow from Oregon, and after the holiday we have a short trip up to British Columbia to visit friends. I will say that we saw a few new things on this driving trip of 5,850 miles. We had never been to Death Valley or the Mohave Desert before. It wasn’t terribly hot in October; 100 degrees the first day we were there and very cool mid-80s the next day. In the Mohave we were hit with torrential rains. The natives call them monsoons. We saw Yosemite on a very dismal day. The park was not at its best. (But then our own Mt. Rainier National Park is closed because of 18" of rain, roads washed out, the Nisqually River having its own way. I’ll be interested to see how our cabin is. It’s probably about a hundred yards from the Nisqually.)

We did several things related to the Apache Wars. In Tucson we visited Fort Lowell. It was too far east to have been directly involved. But it provided a depot for food and goods to go farther west, as well as troops to protect wagon trains and replacents for troops farther west who were involved in fighting or chasing the Chiricahua. Near Wilcox we drove about ten miles of rough road to revisit Cochise’s Stronghold. Some years back I was able to hike to the crest of the Dragoon Mountain from which Cochise’s band could spot troops both to the west and the east. Since we were last there some very good explanatory sign have been erected telling of these Apache. In Wilcox I should mention that we visited the Rex Allen Museum. One of the Last of the Singing Cowboys.

More anon.