REMEMBER THEM BIG BACK SEATS YEARS AGO:))
We first met Sergeant John back in December last year when Kelly posted a question on the RV Net Forum
http://www.rv.net/forum/ about boondocking spots around Sierra Vista Arizona. John responded on the forum saying he lived in the area & worked at nearby Fort Huachuca so new the area well & daily traveled the very road we were presently boondocking near. We corresponded with him back & forth for a bit & John dropped in to see us one Friday afternoon on his way home to Elfrida from Sierra Vista. He extended an invitation for Kelly & I to drop in & see him & his wife after we got settled in our McNeal ranch sitting job. To-day we dropped in & met John again, his lovely wife Jackie, & their cute little dog, Mattie. She's a little peach.
THIS 1951 HUDSON HORNET HAS HAS WON MANY AWARDS & APPEARS ON VARIOUS CAR WEBSITES
John is a car buff & his two vintage Hudson Hornets have been a big part of his life for quite a few years. Lovingly cared for they have won many awards & been to countless car shows across the country. John once had the largest Hudson website on the internet.......until AOL pulled the rug out from under many subscribers a few years back & he lost the whole site. Much of it was backed up but John just hasn't got around to setting it all up again.
WHEN CARS WERE CARS
The cars had been under winter wraps in John's large garage until to-day. The dusty covers came off & the Hudson's came out. A gun metal blue & gray 1951 Hudson Hornet & a pale yellow & green 53 Hornet. The 53 actually came from Saskatchewan Canada & John drove up their to trailer it back. The farmer he bought it from actually sent him the front license plate a couple of months later. You can see it in to-day's photo album.
THIS 53 HUDSON HORNET CAME FROM SASKATCHEWAN CANADA
It's been awhile since I was around older cars & despite being about 8 years old when these cars were popular they did bring back memories for me. The overall rounded design of the car reminded me of the Chevs, Fords, & Dodges of that era as well. The big chrome grills, large whitewall tires, wrap around sun visor, & the big hood ornament. They all had hood ornaments back in those days as well as big chrome bumpers. The cloth designed & soft cushy seats, big round chrome centered steering wheel, the large round speedometers, & the big thumping bass sound of the single speaker in the middle of the dash. These were the days when cars were cars & quality meant what it said. No shortcuts, no plastic pieces, no back room politics about giving the consumer minimum amount of product for maximum amount of money. Those were the days when you trusted the cars your neighbor built. Those were the waning days of the last great decade of trust. Those Hudson Hornets came from the 1950's. And those Hudson Hornets in John's garage to-day were just about as new as the day they were made. And that was nearly 60 years ago & that says something about quality!!
A VIEW FROM THE BACK SEAT OF THE 53
Jackie & John live in the little burg of Elfrida north of Douglas, Arizona. They have a class A motorhome & generally travel in the summer months. They have covered all of the lower 48 States. John says the Army had occasionally sent him on training classes around the country & when that happened they took their RV with them. Great way to travel & see the country. This summer they heading over to California.
KELLY'S NEW PAL, MATTIE
We don't often socialize a whole lot but I must admit it was nice to actually be sitting in a real stick house again to-day talking to some interesting people. Second day in a row for us & we're beginning to feel like social butterflies. When your living in an 8 x 33 box day after day it kind of blows you away when you step into someone's real house. Their kitchen is huge and they even have a real full size rec room basement under their house. I can't even remember the last time I was in a rec room basement. I had one in a new house a long time ago when I lived in Stratford, Ontario & it was my favorite place to hang out. Cool in the summer & warm in the winter. No outside noise & what a great place to run & hide when your wife had things for you to do.
JACKIE & JOHN AT HOME IN THEIR COMFY LIVINGROOM
Yep, that basement brought back some memories alright, just like them there Hudson
Hornets......................
OUR PHOTO ALBUMS
http://picasaweb.google.com/stargeezerguy/
It was not a good night. The big wind hit us again just after midnight & kept up it's relentless howl all night. We had to put both slides in because of the noise & threat of having the slide awnings ripped off. The little Motormouse was scared of all the noisy rocking back & forth so snuggled under the covers as close as she could get. Don't know how many times I was awakened but it seemed like a looooong night. We have been told that March is a very bad month for high winds here in southeastern Arizona:(( 
It was nice to see clear skies this morning as the sun slipped up & over the Swisshelm mountains. The warming rays felt comforting coming through the motorhome windows & what a relief if was not to feel that relentless battering wind. Slipped over & took the rocks off the chickens, gave the rooster a pep talk, & we were off like a herd of turtles in a cloud of heifer dust on a brand new day. 
We had discussed heading over east of Douglas to the Texas John Slaughter ranch to-day but as the morning progressed we felt it was probably better to just hang around the ranch & try to get the energy levels back up to speed after last night's wind fiasco. I spent most of the morning & early afternoon reading & snoozing. Read 4 paragraphs & wake up a half hour later. Read some more, wake up some more just seemed to be the order of the day. Kelly was in better shape buzzing around doing this & that & taking care of Deerpark Lodge business on the phone. 
Around 2 we walked over to the ranch house & popped a DVD into the big TV. La Vie En Rose starring Marion Cotillard is a powerful movie about the extraordinary life of French singer, Edith Piaf. The DVD jacket describes the movie as, "She came from the streets of Paris & survived using the only gift she had...her voice." Seems like we have been having our share of real tear jerker movies lately. 
Realized as the sun was going down that I hadn't taken any photos for the blog so slipped out beside the rig where I had seen some blossoms earlier on a few fruit trees. Apple blossoms I think. Thought it make a nice touch of early spring for our weather weary friends & family back home.
Sure hope the winds don't return in the night......................!!!! 
No photos for the web album to-night. 
OUR PHOTO ALBUMS http://picasaweb.google.com/stargeezerguy/ 
SOMEBODY IS SLEEPING IN MY BED AGAIN!!
THE SWISSHELM MOUNTAINS ACROSS THE ROAD FROM THE RANCH
AND THIS IS CORKY.....THE BIG ENERGY GUY
THE GLEESON MOUNTAINS NORTHEAST OF THE RANCH
APACHE LAIR STEAK HOUSE WHERE SERGEANT JOHN TOOK US FOR SUPPER
THE MOTORMOUSE
HERDS OF BIRDS HEADING TO THEIR EARLY MORNING FEEDING AREA
PEARCE'S GOLD MINING HILL
THE GENERAL STORE IS NOW A MUSEUM ONLY OPEN 2 DAYS A YEAR
PEARCE'S CEMETERY WITH THE DRAGOON MOUNTAINS & COCHISE'S STRONGHOLD IN THE BACKGROUND
AN OLD HELICOPTER BONE YARD
SAND HILL CRANES IN FLIGHT
THE AMERIND
NICE SPAINISH ARCHITECTURE
IT'S KELLY SCHMOOZING WITH THE LOCALS....(THAT'S KELLY ON THE LEFT:))
A LOT OF FREE RANGING CATTLE IN THIS AREA
WE SAW SOME DEER BUT NO BEARS
KELLY'S LOADING ROCKS IN THE CAR
A QUIET MOUNTAIN STREAM
RUCKER CANYON
LOOKING EAST TO THE SAN BERNARDINO VALLEY
GREAT CLOUD PATTERNS TO-DAY
ALIEN SPACE SHIP CLOUDS OVER THE MULE MOUNTAINS
A LAST MINUTE PICTURE
OK, HERE WE GO........HOLD ONTO YOUR HAT!!And it was one year ago to-day that we left Truth or Consequences New Mexico for our long 8 day journey home to Bayfield Ontario, Canada.
The historic town of Fairbank used to be a very important transportation hub. Three railroad lines passed through Fairbank including the New Mexico & Arizona which connected Fairbank to Benson & the Mexican port of Guamas. In the 1880s, at the peak of the silver boom in & around Tombstone, Fairbank served as a central point of entry & exit for miners, prospectors, materials, & ore. Tombstone was not connected to the railway until 1903 so passengers had to take a stagecoach from Fairbank. Passengers who stepped off the train in Fairbank in the 1880s would have seen an elegant hotel and restaurant, a post office, railroad depots and several other businesses. 
And so it was that we pulled off the highway into a dirt parking lot & down around a short road to what was left of the once booming little town of Fairbank. Well, there isn't much left but a sign tells us that it is probably one of the last authentic places with some original buildings intact. The old schoolhouse has been restored & is now a museum but it was closed to-day. There were 3 wooden buildings of which 2 were locked. The small open building was probably for horses years ago. A handwritten sign on another building said for us to stay back because of rattlesnakes. The largest building is completely enclosed by a wire fence with a no admittance sign. This was the General Store, Saloon, & Jail years ago. Plans are in the works to restore this building & a new steel roof has already been put on to protect what's left of the interiors. The San Pedro River & old railway line run along a short distance west of the buildings. 
It was Fairbank's old cemetery located about a half mile north of the town down a narrow dusty mesquite lined road that interested us the most. The cemetery is located atop a rough & rock strewn hill with a narrow footpath leading up to it. As we walked up the path I imagined how many of Fairbank's residents had been carried up this rocky stretch to their final destination. I also thought of all the people who flock to Tombstone's Boot Hill & believe that to be a real authentic cemetery. Oh sure, there are people buried there all right, but anything you see above ground has been manufactured & jazzed up for the tourist trade. I wonder what people would think if they ever saw a real western cemetery, untouched by human hands for over a century. I'm sure a lot of folks would find it boring with it's piles of stones, brambly mesquite trees, decaying old wooden crosses, & rusting gates & fences. No fancy or humorous inscriptions on the tombstones, because there are no tombstones. Just piles of rocks & stones on the gravesites with a few old tattered & broken wooden crosses that have stood the winds of time. Anything inscribed on a piece of wood has long been weathered out by the Arizona sun. There are no flowers here, no manicured trees, no finely mowed grass. Just piles of rocks marking the end of someone's life. No one to remember, no one to care. 
And so we made our way back down the hill of forgotten dreams & walked the half mile back to our car for some much needed water. Tucson tied a heat record to-day at 91F which was first set back in 1910. We probably topped out somewhere around 85F in our area & by the time we made it back to the car from the cemetery Kelly had a headache from the heat. The sun just seemed to ignite your skin everytime it touched you. I've heard it called a dry heat down here but I think it's more like a fry heat. Thank heavens for A/C in the car. The heat must have been brutal in the old days in these parts. Hard to comprehend people out in the hot sun digging holes in the hardened ground searching for silver, gold, & copper, day after day. I'm sure it led many to early graves. 
From Fairbank's we headed west to Whetstone where Kelly had seen a pottery place advertised on TV. Browsed around in there for awhile & thankfully came away empty handed. Headed back down highway 82 past Fairbanks, through Tombstone & south to Bisbee. Stopped along the highway in Bisbee at a scenic look-out & took a few more photos of this picturesque little town in the mountains. And, it seems everytime we go to Bisbee it seems to expand it's boundaries. To-day we stumbled into a little town once known as Warren, but has been annexed by Bisbee so falls under the Bisbee name now. A couple of weeks ago we came across San Jose which is another little town also now under the name of Bisbee. So, for anyone going to Bisbee, be aware that it is made up of 3 separate little towns. Or is it 4. There is another little section on Erie Street that seems to be a whole street complex unto itself & if you find The Bisbee Breakfast Club........you have found Erie Street. The BBC - 
