A Few Days in Sierra Vista, part one

For the last couple of years my husband's office has closed shop between Christmas and New Year's.  This year we made the most of it by adding a few extra days to a trip my husband had to make to Sierra Vista, AZ for some work.  Cassy and I tagged along and made a vacation out of it.  Let me tell you...it's a long drive from Las Vegas, about 9 hours.  After what seemed like forever, we finally made it, checked into the hotel, then went out to explore. 

We headed for the hills, wandered up a couple of roads and found our way into Coronado National Forest...not what I was expecting so far south.  It was a pleasant surprise...until we came across this sign...yep, we are just a few miles from the Mexican border.  P.S...we saw the Border Patrol heading in as we were heading out by the way.  We did finally make it up to this waterfall...so cool...freezing cold.  Some locals said they had never seen it frozen before.  Just beautiful!

Our first full day we ventured over to Tombstone..."the town to tough to die".  It's really not very big so it was easy to walk all over the place.  Timm, Cassy and I wandered all over and enjoyed a relaxing day.  We took the trolley car tour, it was helpful in learning much of the history and occurances in the area.  We tried to watch the gun show but Cassy didn't like the noise at all. 

Timm and Cassy in front of the Courthouse.  It was one of the tallest buildings between the east and west coasts at the time. 

I loved all the old buildings.  It is however, a typical tourist trap with gift and jewelry shops in every building.  We still had a good time though.  I love old western history.  Millions of dollars worth of ore including silver and gold were taken from the mines here.  They even mined mangenize which was vital to the US efforts in the World Wars, we were told about 40% was supplied from Tombstone.