The rain and ferocious wind finally quit during the night and today has been beautiful. We drove down to the Coronado National Memorial, about 25 miles south of here and right on the Mexican border. The memorial consists of a very small visitors center, a half-paved road up to Montezuma Pass and a number of hiking trails.
We drove up to the pass which is around 1000 ft higher than the visitors center. Pavement stops less than halfway up and the rest is well maintained gravel. Vehicles over 24 ft can’t manage the road because of the switchbacks. It’s very narrow but has quite a few wide spaces to give room to pass oncoming vehicles. We were glad we left when we did because a large Class C RV (not a motorhome…..the type that’s built on a van body) looked like it was going to start up. I hope they had enough sense not to try it because they could easily have gotten stuck in a switchback and blocked the road for anyone going down.
You can see the dirt road climbing up the mountain in the top two pictures. There were places on it which were shear drop-offs. Not a good road for anyone with a severe fear of heights.
The bottom picture shows the border fence in the distance. It’s a black line running straight east from the mountain we were on. No fence on the west side, just the east. This is the fence that was in the news so much a few years ago. Haven’t heard much about it in a while. There were border patrol vehicles at the top of the pass and one had some very fancy electronic gear on it. Probably scanning for drug smugglers.
Two more pictures just to prove we were up there and climbed to the peak. What a gorgeous 360 degree view! A very moderate hike from the parking lot or we wouldn’t have done it.
You won’t believe what happened when we were up there. A young couple and the man’s father arrived after we did and asked if we’d take a picture of the three of them. We got to talking and the father asked where we were from. Turned out he lives in Clyde! We come all this way and are practically alone on top of this mountain and up comes someone who lives ten miles from us. Talk about a small world. That was even better than the people from Raleigh we met on top of Cahokia Mound near St Louis in October.
We move to Tucson tomorrow and will see Gabe and her friend Steph for dinner. Their mobile home community is having its monthly potluck to which we’ve been invited. Gabe had a terrible time getting out of Asheville last week because of the weather. Ended up spending the night in a hotel near the airport and getting re-routed the next day through Atlanta and LAX to Tucson. Her checked bag got lost in the process and had United and Delta blaming each other for it. Fortunately it finally showed up today.
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