Whitewater Draw to Alpine

Apparently we just made it in time to see the massed cranes yesterday. Today just before daybreak, we were getting ready to head to the viewing area (we're camped a 5 minute walk away), when we heard a great croaking uproar. 

Too dark to really see then, but 10 minutes later when we got there, there was one lone crane croaking away, heading after the rest. They were all gone, except for a few stragglers later on! 

We found out later on that some of the birds may have just been going out for the day to feed in the surrounding area. Those birds straggle back in later in the day.

We headed north from the crane site today, heading for Silver City NM. But rather than trundle across Interstates, we decided to take this nice twisty-looking road 191 north from I10. Boy is it a trek!

Before getting up to I10 though, we dropped in to the Chiricahua NM park (the Western side from where we were at Cave Creek), to see what it's like. Very nice, all the camping was full though, and no boondocking. 

Then we worked our way up to Willcox for lunch at a BBQ place. Not something we often do, but we had a really good burger and a pulled pork sandwich. Lucky we had a big lunch today! In hindsight it would have been a good idea to camp near Willcox for the rest of the day.

 Cathie trying to avoid the bees in the tree:

After a short jaunt on I10 eastbound from there, we turned up north again to get to #191. The first surprise was the Springfield mine, at Clifton. For lots more info: Springfield Mine 

Apparently one of the largest mines of its type, it's mind-blowingly huge. A fellow visitor told us it runs 24/7, never shuts down.

The "little" truck you see in the center below is really one of those Monster trucks used in open-pit mining:

The road through the mine was interesting enough, then past the mine it got scenic and even twistier. It's a long slow drive, reaching over 9,000 ft elevation in places, and lots of snow at the higher elevations. Interesting though. when we were surrounded by the most snow, the air temp was up over 10C.
The pink line on the GPS was our road:

We decided to not stop for a picnic:

 An elk herd in a roadside field:

We finally got to the little town of Alpine and made camp after dark just outside town at a campground not yet open.  Another free boondock but no free services this time. Electric would have been nice, as it got down to -4C in the wee hours. We got to use our little propane heater again.