We discovered Bisbee on our fall VanMan trip last year. We are a bit tired of Seattle's seemingly constant gray skies, but we decided we could be happy with our Hardrock Ranch commune (still recruiting members, see my summer blog www.hardrockranch.blogspot.com) if we could go south to the sun for a few months during the long dreary winters.
Bisbee seemed perfect - we were looking for a "real" place, not a "retirement community." Bisbee is an old mining town, beautiful setting in the Mule Mountains, artsy, funky, good restaurants, cool old buildings, lots of history, tons of Arizona sunshine. We missed one detail, though: Bisbee's elevation is 5,000 feet - or 6,000, depending, I guess, on which street you're standing on. That makes it a mile high. That means it's COLD in the winter. Around 27 degrees this morning, for instance, so we're not going to be able to roll up our water hose for awhile yet.
It isn't dreary, though, and we've worn our sunglasses every day (in Seattle, they would be in the back of the junk drawer for months).
Bisbee is addictive. We find ourselves talking about selling out up north and being here full-time. Mark wants to buy old miner's cottages and restore them. Or old bordellos. We find ourselves hanging out here, in spite of the cold, and in spite of plans to continue on to visit friends and relatives in Houston, Waveland, Miami and Atlanta. We're house-hunting. We're spending Christmas huddled in our van.
For today's art, note the twist on this arch:
And another cool gate:
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