The Adventure Continues… Florida City, FL to Tombstone, AZ

The adventure continues as we’ve spent the last few days travelling from Florida City, FL to Tombstone, AZ.

We left Florida City with lots of time and instead of following our Google map which said we had 1 hour to get to Fort Lauderdale we decided to trust the GPS in the car.

GPS may get you there but it doesn’t always go the fastest route.

Google said 59 minutes on the toll route.

GPS took us through downtown Miami and it took us two hours.

Good thing we left in plenty of time.

Dropped off the car and caught the plane to Dallas.

We had stowed our luggage and as I was turning to get into the seat I felt my knee pop and I almost fell to the floor.

Damn… I hate it when that happens.

The good news is that when my knee is bent like sitting in a chair it didn’t hurt too much so the flight to Dallas wasn’t too bad until I got off the plane.

Pain shooting through my legs as I attempted to hobble to the next gate.

At least the gate was close by and we didn’t have to get on the train to go to the other side of the airport.

As I’m hobbling down the airport a lady drew near pushing an empty wheelchair and asked me if I needed some help.

Miracles do happen.

I think Rob was surprised that I took the ride as I don’t think he realized just how painful it was.

Some people will do anything to be the first on the plane. 🙂

Small children and people having trouble walking get to load first and as we were in the second from the last seats on the plane, it seemed like a long walk.

Rob gave me one of his magic pain pills and all was well.

Hobbling my way through the Phoenix airport and rental car depot I found my groove. You know… that one way to walk that causes the least pain.

It may look funny, but it works.

Once we got the car we headed to Casa Grande for the night as it’s an easy stepping off point for another adventure.

Getting up in the morning we headed to the Salvation Army and Rob got a new shirt and I got a telescoping cane.

If you have to get a cane might as well get a cool one.

As it had rain the night before and was overcast today we decided to head towards Gila Bend as the weather was supposed to be better in that direction.

But once we hit Hwy 8 we turned around and headed to Tombstone as the weather looked like it was clearing in the direction as well.

Saw a few red-tailed hawks along the way and as we had time got off Hwy 10 after Tucson and took a secondary road Hwy 83 to Sonoita and then east along Hwy 82 to Tombstone.

This road has beautiful scenery and is perfect grazing land.

The grass at this time of year is a golden wheat colour and combined with the green shrubs looks like someone painted it.

Along the way, we saw a sign for Empire Ranch Headquarters that said it was open so off we went.

I’ll put some pictures below, but check out the link above. It was a really neat place and a lot of movies have been filmed there.

It was a working ranch and still is today but these buildings are no longer used except to inform people and give you a sense of what life on a ranch was like.

You could wander in and out of the houses and barns which were staged with some of the old furniture and fixture.

They also had clothing appropriate to the old west and Rob found a hat that he tried on and got into the spirit of the times.

One thing I thought was neat was something they called a Zaguan which was a hallway with bedrooms on both sides of it that lead into a corral.

This was where the cattle were driven into each night so anyone or anything that wanted to get at the animals would have to go through this corridor and they could be dealt with appropriately.

(If you click on the pictures below you should be taken to another page and if you click on them again it should make them large enough for you to read the copy.)

Leaving the ranch I was keeping my eyes training on the landscape to see if I could spot some Pronghorn Antelope as we had seen them in this area years ago.

And there they were.

Off in the distance, I could see their white rumps and there were 16 of them.

So neat to see in the wild.

Did you know they only exist on the prairies of North America and nowhere else in the world?

Also that they are the 2nd fastest land animal in the world second only to the cheetah.

There was a little trivia for the day.

We continued without incident to Tombstone, got a room and went out for dinner.

You know the best place to eat beef is where they actually grow it and the prime rib cut like butter and it was an inch thick.

Looks like we have lunch tomorrow as well.

Rob went to get the car as I walked down the ramp to wait for him to pick me up and my knee popped again.

Damn… but I think this time in a good way.

I couldn’t straighten it after the first time and now I can almost stand up straight on it.

Icing it tonight and tomorrow will get a wrap or brace to hold it in place.

I have sandhill cranes to see and no wonky knee is going to keep me from that!

Keeping my fingers crossed the weather is good as it’s cloudy with a few sprinkles tonight.

Life is always interesting.