Arizona Day 5: Rain, Fog, Rocks and Ghost Towns

This was our rainy day.  We traveled to the east side of the state to visit Chiricahua National Monument.  On our way there we stopped in what we thought would be a quaint little town, but when we drove into Wilcox, every store, restaurant and hotel appeared to be bordered up.  It was really sad.  The only place we could find to eat was a Pizza Hut with brown wilted lettuce in their salad bar.  Then as we were driving out of town we wanted to kick ourselves because we suddenly drove into the historic part of Wilcox that had the cute coffee shop, winery’s and an adorable restaurant in a train car!  We were just one block away this whole time!  Argh!

When we reached Chiricahua, this little Red Naped Sapsucker was hanging out in the tree right in front of us and he did not seem too concerned about me getting close to him.

Mexican Jay

Chiricahua felt so completely different from the other side of the state.  It was really rocky with lots of trees instead of cactus.  I really wish it hadn’t been so foggy and rainy and what felt like 40 degrees!  It was freezing!  The fog made for some fun photos though! Since we were so close to the New Mexico border we decided to hop over and we came across this spooky little ghost town called Stein’s.  It was pretty eerie, especially with the fog and it was getting dark too.  But I still managed to get some photos.  When we got home I looked up the old town and I was sad to find out that it used to be open to tourists but they had to close a few years ago because of finances.  Check out their Facebook page to view more photos of the interior of the place.  It looks like it would have been really cool to visit.  I also didn’t realize this, but apparently there are a lot more ghost towns like this in New Mexico.  I need to go to them before they close too!