Western Travel Day 8, February/March 2016

Yesterday, Sunday, 2/7, we were going to go to a church just down the road, but then I read about a couple of places not too far from us that are worth seeing.
The first was the Chiricahua National Monument.

Twenty seven million years ago a volcanic eruption of immense proportions shook the land around Chirdicahua National Monument.  One thousand times greater than the 1980 eruption of Mt. St. Helens,  the Turkey Creek Caldera eruption eventually laid down 2,000 feet of Highly silicious ash and pumice. This mixture fused into a rock called rhyolitic tuff and eventually eroded into the spires and unusual rock formations of today.  (That's the texbook version!!!).

Anyway, the rock formations were definitely unusual as you will see shortly.

To get there, we had to drive about 35 miles. 

Of course, we saw more pecan trees.

 Getting closer...

These are the best representation of the rocks.

 Still snow on the ground even though it was 63 degrees.

They did have an 8- mile road that takes you up into the mountains and gets you closer to these formations, but it was closed.  We really wanted to see that!

Here is another picture from the internet.

 Nice scenery on the way out taking a different route to get to Wilcox, AZ

At Wilcox we expected to tour the Rex Allen museum.  If you may remember, he was a country/western singer and then starred in several cowboy movies in the 50’s.  Unfortunately, the museum was closed so we didn’t get to see much.  

(They did have a Dairy Queen though!!  Got the yummy red velvet cake blizzards!!).