Go West old man!: Douglas AZ day trip

We woke up to another cloudy day but one that looked more promising for later on. It was not raining! We started off in Sierra Vista to get a prescription refill then out to the San Pedro River Riparian District for some hiking. When we got there the wind had picked up and some ugly clouds were forming up. With the wind Carlene figured her bird watching would be reduced so we headed off to Bisbee, only 15 miles away from there. As we drove up into the pass above Bisbee we could see fresh snow only a couple hundred feet above us; the temp was down to 38, the wind was a howling and it started to rain! And there in the road was a bicycle group "Coast to Coast" on their vests. Poor... cyclists! Well, we figured this was no weather to walk about in Bisbee. Hey, we've never been to Douglas and it's only 22 miles from Bisbee. Keep on truckin'. By the time we got to Douglas we were 80 miles from camp. Such is the life of a tourist.

Douglas is a nice looking town with some interesting history. It was a smelter town, smelting copper ore from Bisbee and places in Mexico and the Chihuahua Mountains to the east. So while it is not close to any of the mines it is central to many of them. It once had railroads running in all four directions. Today it is a shadow of that economic era. Downtown has several fine buildings of the day that are in various stages of restoration. The Gadsden Hotel is restored and in operation. We met the leader of the bike gang... er, that is the bicycle tour group, while we were admiring the hotel lobby. They are going from San Diego to St. Augustine FL as we suspected.
We did the walking tour of the historic district and took in some sights as well as a tour of the Douglas-Williams House, named for the town namesake plus the second owner of the house.
So hiking in the Riparian area, Bisbee and Tombstone are still on the list of things to do while we are here. We'll probably run out of fresh water about the same time we run out of priority things to do. I think this makes six nights here on Empire Ranch. Actually loosing track, but who cares?