The Wild West is a legendary piece of US history and worth a bit of attention by the traveller. As we drive across southern Arizona, overlanding the wild west, we see a cheesy show, ponder the age-old air-con dilemma, and looking ahead we contemplate another stab at Alaska…
Coronado-Chiricahua
After crossing back into USA from Mexico, our first stop was the Coronado National Forest and the Chiricahaua National Monument. Ever heard of these? No, we thought not. But they are worth a visit if you’re in these parts, particularly at this time of the year when it’s getting hot down in them there lowlands. Up at 2,000 m is far nicer climate for hiking in the middle of the day.
Busy in Bisbee
A bit further west… Wild West in fact… are the historic towns (well… that’s historic by US standards… they don’t do European-standards of history here 😉) of Bisbee and Tombstone.
Bisbee is a very cool old mining town, perched substantially on a steep hillside. It’s full of laid-back olde-worlde charm and we really enjoyed a wander through the streets. There’s even a studio for learning how to be a circus performer, but we skipped the opportunity 🤣. In nearby Lowell is a very cool street of mid-20th century history – beautifully restored buildings and vehicles all from an era that many Americans today can still remember.
Tombstone Cheese
North a few miles from Bisbee is the famous Tombstone, Arizona with the OK Corral. Y’know… site of the famous shoot-out. Tombstone has successfully capitalised on its history by creating a Wild West experience town. This is no rip-off pay-to-enter theme park… it’s the streets of the town, free to wander. The high street is an authentic looking parade of shops, bars and businesses with costume-clad locals wandering the streets.
For a small fee at the OK Corral, you can watch young actors re-enact the famous shooting. Cheesy!! you may well cry. But wait… hear us out here… It is of course CheesyAF. But cheesy culture is as much a part of a country’s culture as the high-brow stuff. It might not be in the Smithsonian league of educational value, but if you want to get a feel for a country you need to experience a whole range of cultures. Cheesy Tombstone isn’t to everyone’s personal taste, but it does tell of American life both yesterday and today. And the real-life stories behind the tombstones in the Boothill Graveyard are fascinating… like the guy who was shot for disagreeing how fast cattle should be herded! It was tough in them days!
Teething Troubles
From Tombstone we continue west across Arizona, through the Las Cienagas National Conservation Area, past Tucson and over to Yuma on the California State Line. The dedicated and observant Cuthbert follower may recall that we’ve been to the Yuma area several times on our North America overlanding odyssey. Oh, it’s a nice enough area with some scenic desert and the pretty Colorado River, but by the high-bar of US standards it’s hardly a unique beauty worthy of multiple visits.
The attraction, dear Cuthbert follower, is the affordable dental work available in Los Algodones a short walk across the border into Mexico. Dental work is a crazy price in both USA and Canada, so we joined the thousands of Americans/Canadians who flock here each year to get their teeth sorted.
A couple of years ago on our first visit there I had two implants done for a fraction of the $$$ it would have cost in USA/Canada. When I subsequently had them checked in Canada during a routine check-up/x-ray, the dentist said the work was at least as good, if not better, than any implants she had seen by US/Canadian dentists. The standards are generally very high, but as in any country, not all dentists are created equal. If you plan to go there, do carry out a bit of research and try to get a personal recommendation.
To Aircon or not to Aircon
As we arrived in Yuma, the temperature was hovering around the pleasant 30C ish. A bit hot for any strenuous activity in the middle of the day, but otherwise most agreeable for us. However, at this time of year the temperature soars rapidly towards summer. After our 10 days there, the midday temperatures were getting up to a less-than-comfortable 41C. This raises for us (again) the perennial dilemma ‘to-aircon-or-not-to-aircon’. We see many RVs in USA fitted with an aircon unit, even relatively small RV/vans often have it fitted.
We have taken the much-considered decision not to aircon. Why so? Well… an aircon unit is heavy and bulky. It’s also a massive drain on battery capacity. Our chosen travel-style is to wild-camp and we have a deep dislike of noisy generators or RV parks with plug-in facilities.
An air-con unit is one more piece of equipment to go wrong. We didn’t (and still don’t) plan to spend much time lingering in uncomfortably hot climates. And when we do (inevitably) pass through hot-zones, we’ll manage with a roof-fan system to keep the air moving. We figured that if a climate is so unpleasant that we simply want to shut the door and sit inside our plastic box, the place is probably not one worth hanging around for. At the time of fitting out Cuthbert it didn’t seem worth accepting the downsides of aircon for the very short periods that we might occasionally benefit from having it.
So with the benefit of eight years hindsight, and sitting in Yuma as the midday temperatures increasing daily towards 40C… are we regretting our decision? Honestly… no. Yes, it would be a nice-to-have for a few short periods over our time living in Cuthbert so far. But on balance, carrying the weight and bulk just wouldn’t be worth it.
We have spent the vast majority of our time travelling in pleasantly warm, temperate or cold climates. Central heating we certainly couldn’t live without. But aircon is a luxury we would only rarely use. So where a compromise has to be reached in terms of what we can carry, aircon is an item we can live without. That said… we cannot tell a lie… it was indeed a relief to be heading north out of the hot-zone when our dental treatment was finished 😉
A Second Stab
It’s not only the climate that made us happy to move on from Yuma in May. When you’re living a nomadic lifestyle, there is an inherent frustration with being ‘stuck’ in any place longer than you might ordinarily want to be. Regardless of the reason… dental… technical truck stuff… whatever… the inability to move on when the urge arises does cause frustration. It’s hard to describe the renewed feeling of freedom when you’re finally free to hit the open road again.
So where to? Well… drumroll please… we’ve made a bit of a big decision… we’re going to have a second stab at Alaska! The long-term Cuthbert follower may recall that over two years ago we were on our way there. We made it as far as Whitehorse in The Yukon when the dratted ‘rona virus stopped us in our tracks.
In June 2020 we reached the Alaska border and peered over into the USA. “Y’all just hang around a bit… they gotta open that there border soon…” well-meaning locals advised. But after three months in the Yukon, we saw no sign of an opening to Alaska. So we popped-off to see a bit more of fabulous Canada instead. And it’s a good job we did… the ‘soon’ turned out to be a 20, yes twenty whole months of border closure! Not until November 2021 could non-essential land-travel resume between Canada and USA.
Turns out we made the right call to move on from the Alaska border in June 2020. But since then it’s been niggling away in the back of our minds… we never completed the Pan-American Highway. We started it in December 2015 way down in Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego (and before you hit the send button… yes… we know the Pan-Am doesn’t technically start there, but it is undeniably the very bottom of the drivable Americas) but we never reached the top. Can we really, hand-on-heart, say we’ve ‘done’ the Pan-Am if we don’t get to the top of Alaska? We think not.
Remember… we’re in Yuma, Arizona on the US/Mexican border. It’s over 6,500km to Prudhoe Bay, Alaska. That’s just to get there. It’s another 6,500km back! And whilst there are plenty of routes through the lower-48 of USA, once we reach central British Columbia the routes are very limited. We’ll have to re-trace around 3,000 km (each way!) of the exact same roads we drove before through Canada. But we can’t leave The Americas without giving it another go.
So we’re off northwards. Watch this space for our route north for a second stab at Alaska!