Bisbee 2

Bisbee is a beautiful little town nestled in a pretty narrow valley. I forgot what it was like to be surrounded by hills but no trees… cozy. The town is built into the hills and our guest house was near the top of the development. This provided a grand view of the architecture and people below and encouraged the deck-sitting-voyeur in me. The house was really lovely and a great place to host a family reunion. The manager of the house lived nearby and was super nice. She baked chocolate a cake and gave us a bottle of champagne to celebrate Barbara's birthday. Then she brought us firewood and kindling for the chiminea on the main deck. This was unbelievably classy of her.
The copper mine (the main reason for the existence of Bisbee) can be seen to the southeast. It is quite a sight to see the rocky terraced hillside where copper was once extracted, both beautiful and repellent. It invoked both shame and pride by such a vast alteration to the land.

There were a lot of birds chirping in the evening and the air was really sweet with the scent of some desert flower that I can’t identify, but was very similar to honeysuckle. Also, there were no insects, not even screens on the doors or windows.
The guest house we stayed at was far from baby-proof. There were two horizontal rails on the second story deck, one at about a foot from the deck and another at just under four feet. Not so good for toddlers. The first floor leads out to the driveway which has some plantings and then a ten foot drop into a bed of cactus… like in cartoons. I am amazed at how zeroing in on baby hazards has become second nature to me. Open stairs, lamps on the edges of tables, floor vases… It still was a really nice place though and Alden didn't seem to mind the impending peril that was all around.
We had one fancy-schmancy supper at a restaurant called Cafe Roka. The food was tremendous and it was a lovely place to take Barbara in celebration of her birthday. The kids did alright, although Alden and I did leave a little early due to fussiness.

We spent a good deal of time exploring the town and doing some shopping. There was quite a bit of hiking too, as well as a tour of the old mine. For the tour we all had to put on yellow raincoats, miner helmets and miner lights and ride the miner mini-train (I'm not really sure what it is called) into the mountain.
The trip was very nice and I managed to grow a beard which I may keep for awhile. Alden got sick SIX times on the flight back. We thought it was motion sickness, but then Ilana felt a little woozy for a day afterwards, so it might have been a bug. In any case we made it back intact and enjoyed the trip very much.