Old Timer Garage

On Saturday morning, I wake up early but I am feeling better. I am starting to recover from the jetlag et the sun that I can see through the curtains helps me get up. It is already quite hot outside and it is so nice to have such bright light and hot temperatures.

The others don’t take too long to wake up too and we all get the breakfast ready. It will quickly be eaten and we are all jumping in the car. The cameras are ON and we are on our way.

Once again, deserts as far as we can see. Everything seems huge to me. The scenery goes tens of miles away, the few cars we cross path with are huge too… everything in this country seems to be gigantesque.

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I am just starting to realise that we really are in the US.

Weirdly enough, it seems to me that I have waited to go on this trip for so long that it is almost surreal. I can’t wipe the smile on my face. I am in love with everything I see.

A few billboards on the side of the road remind us that we are getting close to Tombstone and a few miles later, we are already parking the car. A group of veterans and their Harley Davidsons had the same idea as us and a marshal standing in the middle of the road crossing is signalling the cars and bikes to move around.

Once parked, we are off for a walk in the town streets. And all of a sudden, we are in the far west atmosphere, exactly the same style as the Lucky Luke stories I was reading when I was a child. Several saloons, boot shops, cow boy hats, restaurants etc… I buy myself a hat that is more than welcome considering the heat outside.

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After having walked around the town, it is time to go and get something to eat. We try to find some room in a saloon but it is full, full up with bikers who see us coming with a smile on their face. One of them tells us jokingly that this saloon is reserved for people over 65 years old which considering the people in there could have been plausible.

Eventually, we find another small restaurant with a few free spots and we order a mix of different meats that are more than welcome.

Nothing fancy, everything is served in plastic plates and polystyrene glasses but we are hungry and the food is good.

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Once our meal finished, we go back to the car. After 5 minutes, we get to Tombstone cemetery. It is a weird place to visit, I would admit that but the scenery is amazing to start with and most of the people who are buried there were people who lived in the cowboys era so the reason for their death are pretty unusual.

For example: here lays George Johnson, hanged by mistake 1882. He was right, we was wrong but we strung him up and now he is gone.

Many of them died in gun fights. Most of them for reasons more or less valid. There was even one who got killed because someone didn’t like the colour of his shirt!

It is a quick visit that costs three dollars per person but it is worth having a look.

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Then, the plan was to go and take a walk in downtown Tucson. It is around a 90 minute drive to get there but it is a quiet drive, pretty much in a straight line all along in the middle of the desert. The only stop we have to make is for the check-point as in every road that goes away from the Mexican border. The purpose of these check-points is to control cars that are driving away from the border to make sure they are not transporting illegal immigrants. It is generally pretty quick, you just have to lower your windows, remove your glasses and present your passport and it usually is enough to be on your way again.

In Tucson, we park the car next to the University campus. At the beginning, we were planning on eating a burger in one of my brother’s favourite restaurant in town but we are so full from our lunch still that we will just get a drink in a Starbucks sat in the shade before carrying on walking around the city centre. The size of the university campus is huge. Everything seems to be huge in this country.

After having walked for a while, we decide to drive up to Gates pass. It is just over Tucson on the west side and the only thing that there is there apart from rocks are cactus, thousands of them as far as the eye can see. When we get there, we still have some time before the sun sets so we take a few pictures and get back in the car to go a bit further into the desert.

Mail boxes aligned on the side of the road, cactus and sun. It is absolutely gorgeous! I wouldn’t mind spending a few years of my life in this place.

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It is now time to go back to Gates pass for the sunset. The colours are already starting to change. We are not the first ones in getting to the top of the mountain. This place is quite famous as much among tourists as among lovers. Just married people were even there for their pictures to be taken.

The sun setting on the valley is simply stunning, pictures are worth a thousand words.

Once the sun hidden behind the horizon, we take the car back home to Nogales.

Tomorrow we will cross the border and spend some time in Mexico and the day after tomorrow will be the start of our road trip: two full weeks of travelling through the big empty spaces of the southwest of the US!

To be continued… here: 4- Nogales Sonora - Mexico

 

 

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