Its about time

How time flys when your having fun, can't believe its been over a week since my last blog, the weather has been great here until now, today its cold and windy, might even get some snow, I hate that word, but no place has the perfect weather all the time.
                 Went to Fort Bowie the other day with some friends from here in the park, its about a hour and a half away, a nice ride thru the back roads. When you get to the National park you park your vehicle and have to walk 1.5 miles to the fort, first on the hike you see the old Butterfield stagecoach  station, next is the grave yard then Apache well, where they got their water from for the fort and the stage stop and finely the fort itself. Lots of history there, the old Butterfield stagecoach line ran rite past the Fort on its way to Tucson, all told it covered 2500 hundred miles from St Louis Mo, to San Diago, Ca. and took 28 days, what a ride that must have been, can you imagine being on a stagecoach for 28 strait days, holy cow. there's a stagecoach stop rite by the Fort where they changed horses and the passengers got a chance to stretch their legs and get a bite to eat, you have to be there to see how isolated this place is, the Fort was there to keep the Apache Indian's in check and to protect the stage line. It's hard to believe you can still see the tracks of the stagecoaches in a few places.

              The grave yard was next, lots of the soldiers died fighting the Apaches and another 1/4 mile or so was Apache wells where they got the water from, just standing there at the well you go back in time and imagine all the Indian's for hundreds of years coming to this one spot for water and water still coming up out of the ground like it has for God knows how long. Another 1/2 mile of walking and your at the fort, its in the middle of nowhere and no place, but when you think of it, that's the only place where's there's water for God knows how many miles, not much choice on where to build it. The stage line actually went out of its way to get the water at Apache wells, how times have changed. If you ever watched the 1939 movie Stagecoach with John Wayne, there really is a place called Lordsburg, its in New Mexico and the stage did go thru it on its way to Tucson, AZ. One thing that struck me funny was a big sign at the well saying ( don't drink the water) what's up with that??

           Next was the fort, and at one time it was big, lots of wooden and adobe buildings, all the wood ones are gone now but there are still ruins of the adobe ones. Where did they all go??