Chiricahua Mountains

We left the Kartchner Caverns Campground at 8:30 a.m. after rising to find it 37 degrees outside. Arizona is nowhere near as warm as Baja, and we are “suffering” under the adjustment! However, today dawned sunny and with clear skies, so we were happy. We drove 1 ½ hours east to the Chiricahua Mountains National Monument and Campground, picked a campsite for ourselves and an adjacent one for Hobie (who arrived separately in his Volkswagen Westphalia about an hour later from his casita outside Tucson), then left to take a hike. We’d planned to take a particular hike that would direct us through the Heart of the Rocks, but got off on the wrong trailhead, so ended up still finding our way to Heart of the Rocks, but completing an 8 ½ mile hike instead, longer than we’d planned. We started off at elevation 6700’ and meandered up and down from there. The rocks here are essentially indescribable – amazing, gorgeous, unfathomable, peculiar – we’re not sure what other adjectives to attach to how attractive and unusual they are (Lynn, you would think you’d died and gone to heaven on these hikes with spectacular rock formations!) Google “Chiricahua Mountains” and you will see what we mean. We returned to our campground around 3:30 to find Hobie settled in at his across-the-road campsite. Bob and Matt took showers in our outside shower tent (this campground has flush toilets but no showers) but Mackenzie and Cathryn felt it was too cold (50s) to bother. Eventually our pyro-maniac son-in-law Matt (former Oregon Forest Service fire crew worker) built a lovely fire in the grill at our site, around which we huddled for the next 5 hours to keep warm throughout cocktail hour, dinner, and S’Mores (courtesty of Matt and Mackenzie). The stars were in full brilliance, and we were happy to retire to the Chalet with propane heater, rather than the unheated tent to which Mackenzie and Matt retired, with the outside temp already down to 40 degrees at 9:15 pm.