No birding today!

My Road Scholar tour scheduled a visit to some sites accessed through the Fort Huachuca (wha-choo-ka with the emphasis on choo) military base and this subversive Canadian grandmother was not allowed on the base. I might learn secrets, you know, and pass them to CSIS. (CSIS is so secret almost no one one knows it means Canadian Security Intelligence Service.)

Road Scholar generously arranged for a guide for me, so I spent the day looking at abandoned buildings and enjoying wine tastings – my stated preferences for the day. Who knew Arizona produced wine??? The old gas station in the photo above is in Warren, just outside Bisbee. While I do not have photos of Bisbee 😠, I highly recommend a visit to this historic, artsy town.

My envisioned timeline for today was to visit abandoned coal mining communities, then stop for lunch, then do a couple of wine tastings, then back to Sierra Vista. The guide accepted my suggestions but re-sequenced my agenda. We visited one old homestead followed at 10:43 am (!) by two wine tastings, then an abandoned coal mining village, and finally lunch. A very pleasant day though morning drinking is not my usual style!

The first stop was the Brown Canyon Ranch. Dating from the early 1880s, there is a ranch house and a couple of outbuildings. All have been restored though I could only enter the house. On the shelf was the only drygood on dispay, tin of baking powder. I wondered about the graphic but my guide had no inside information. The man-made pond in the photo below is a preserve for the endangered Chiricahua leopard frog. Sadly, none were posing for photos when I visited, but the windmill is still pumping water.

Next up – wine tasting #1 at Elgin Winery. Elgin has been a family business for over 40 years, and its rustic surroundings are confirmation. This sign on the door made me happy my name isn’t Dick. Another sign proudly advertised the building’s past as a bordello.

I tasted the Cheeky Monkey (sauvignon blanc), the Grenache Rosé, the Old World Cuvée, the Vino de San Vincente (cabernet sauvignon) and the 2016 Willcox Barbera (red). I was amazed how good all of these wines were. I especially liked the Cuvée. My guide supplied me with a snack pack of cheese and raisins and nuts which made a good accompanyment for the wine. He also told me there is a chapel behind the winery, but the proprietor told us it is now closed to tourists as people were stealing things from it.

Wine tasting #2 took place at the Autumn Sage Vineyard, a modern California-esque winery. I tasted the Voignier, the Cactus Wren Rosé, the Estate Couniuse (pinot noir), the Cabernet Sauvignon and the “star of the show” Estate Sagrantino. Sagrantino grapes are typically used in a blend, but Autumn Sage ferments them on their own. My favourite was the Voignier which went admirably with the second snack provided by my guide. He must have been worried that I would (i) fall asleep, (2) wander off or (3) be sick in his van.

The seond abandoned site we visited was the Fairbank Historic Townsite “ghost town.” There are several buildings, all beautifully restored. None of the buildings were open on this Thursday and we were the only people there. An interpretive sign told the story of the great train robbery of 1900 – see the banner photo at the top of this post. A successful robbery the previous year enboldened the robbers to try again when a train stopped in Fairbank. There was gunfire, the robbers fled empty handed, but eventually all were captured and jailed.

All in all this was a very relaxing, pleasant day, a nice respite from the rigors of birdwatching. I had envisioned shooting real ghost towns with buildings actually falling down and not restored as those I saw. But the south east Arizona history lesson my voluble guide provided more than made up for the lack of derelict structures.

Back to birds tomorrow! Til then …