Did Geronimo Ever Run Out of Gas?

Yesterday was more of a transit day than anything. That said, I did see a couple interesting things. I started the day by heading east from Sierra Vista to Douglas, AZ and then north from there. As I was leaving Sierra Vista I started thinking that it wasn't the terrible little town that I remembered. I think theta this time through, without the instant bad mood that going to Army classes gives you it's a much nicer place. It's still a crappy little town and I would never want to live there but it's not nearly as bad as I thought 6 years ago. The area around town is actually very pretty. It's up in the mountains at about 5000 feet or so. There is a flat plateau that the town sits in that is surrounded by low mountains (they really aren't that low, it's just that they don't rise up too much more than the plateau). As you head east, you pass through these low mountains into another plateau. That was the pattern for much of the trip; flat land surrounded by mountains, a low pass and then another plateau.



As I got north of Douglas there were fewer and fewer towns. It made me wonder what the people that did live out there actually do for a living. There didn't seem to be any kind of industry nearby. I guess there were a few ranches but even then I didn't see much livestock. There were no farms nearby, too dry for that. I couldn't figure it out. Sierra Vista makes money off the Soldiers that are always cycling through there, Bisbee is a tourist town, but these little towns....I just don't know.

At one point I stopped at a monument. I did't know what it was at the time but it turned out to be a monument to the surrender of Geronimo in 1886 to General Miles. The actual surrender took place in Skeleton Canyon, not far away. According to the monument, this put an end to the Indian Wars that the southwest had been going through for some time. Kind of cool I thought.



I took highway 80 to Lordsberg, NM, then 90 to Silver City, then 180 to 12 to 32 to 36 to 117 to Grants, NM, where I am now. I call them highways but I think most of them were actually state routes.

I passed though a lot of land that kept to the pattern I mentioned before, plateau, low mountains, plateau before entering the Gila National Forrest. I have to admit, it didn't look much like a forrest. More like an area with lots of what I might call short trees but I might also call them high bushes. Not the kind of forrest I'm used to. The land got out of it's old pattern at this point and became broken by various cliffs and hills.



While I did admire the beauty of this land, I was a bit distracted by my fuel gauge constantly getting lower and lower. Unfortunately, there weren't many places to fill up on this leg of the trip. I topped off whenever I could but this was a long stretch where there just weren't any towns or gas stations for quite a while. I do get very good gas milage on the bike (55MPG on the highway) but I also have a pretty small tank. When I came into Grants last night, the computer said I had about 10 miles worth of gas left in the tank. I'm not sure just how accurate that is but I don't really want to find out. I filled up, ate a quick dinner at Subway and found a hotel.

As I write this this morning I'm planning my trip to Chaco Canyon and then up to Mesa Vista, just across the border in Colorado. It should be fun. I'm also wondering how I could get sunburned despite the copious amounts of sunscreen I used. I guess the desert sun is tougher than I thought.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Grants, NM