After Bisbee we drove south to Douglas, which is in the flat desert on the Mexican border.  Not too interesting.  Town on the Mexican side is Agua Prieta.  Looks much bigger than Douglas on the map, but we did not cross the border to find out.  Northeast of Douglas is a wide spot in the road named Apache with a roadside monument commemorating Geronimo’s surrender to US military troops.  We wanted to drive out to the actual surrender site, but the road was blocked by a locked gate.  Continued northeast to I-10 in a big loop then west to Wilcox.  Stopped there for groceries and late lunch.  Then drove East again out to Chiricahua National Monument.   An area of towering rocks that look like pillars of stones stacked high on top of each other.  There is a campground there with water and trash pickup.  I had been trying to make a reservation there since early March, but the campground was full.  We had water from Bisbee, but we drove through the campground to check out the possibility of refilling our water in a few days after we had camped in the surrounding area outside the Monument.  For some reason, all the water spigots were festooned with yellow tape—water not available.  We knew there was dispersed camping outside the Monument (info from a YouTube video), so we drove out Pinery Canyon road to find it.  About six miles up  a steep, bumpy, mountain road along a gently gurgling creek we found our campsite.  Lots of rock fire rings on a rutted path off to the side of the main road.  There were a few other campers in the area, but not crowded like the full campground.  We stayed here six days until our water got low.

This area of Pinery Canyon is so peaceful.  I can see two kinds of pine trees, oaks, and a few big sycamores along the creek.  The sycamores don’t have their leaves yet.  Lots of turkeys in the area.  We saw and heard them along the roadside as we were driving up, but not so much in camp except very early in the morning. Turns out our campsite is directly across the creek from the area they like to roost in at night.  Interesting to hear them flapping hard at dusk, trying to get up into the trees.  One morning a group of 15 hens and 1 Tom walked through our camp.  We watched from inside.  The Tom had his feathers on full display as he herded the hens along.  There are also lots of deer around.  They come in groups of 3-5 to drink from the creek.  They nervously look up over and over to make sure we won’t get too close.  After a while, when they feel safe, they browse up near the van.

Dave has gotten a lot of sound recordings of bird calls and the bubbling creek here.  No cell service with all these mountains around.  My phone has been stuck on last Tuesday’s news since we got here.