Year 1 Day 47 Antique Car Rally

Before we headed out this morning for our next campsite at Kartchner Caverns State Park, we stopped by the parking lot next to the park ranger’s office at Pancho Villa State Park.  Today was the day of the 12^th annual Pancho Villa Antique Car Rally.  We had never been to such an affair and it was pretty neat.

We actually arrived before it was official open, since we had miles to make this morning.  We had a chance to inspect may of the cars and trucks that had arrived, and their owners were in the process of setting up, polished their pride and joys to a high gloss.

While we were impressed with each antique, we were really impressed with each owner and his or her family.  They all had a passion for their vehicle and enjoyed telling us all about it.  We learned a lot and many of the vehicles brought back fond memories of lost youth.  My dad and mom once had a 1966 Mustang convertible that I spent many hours driving up and down the coastline between Monterey and San Francisco during my college summers.  Oh!  What a hoot that was!  Good times!

Here are a few of the cars we saw:

While dwarfed by this classic, here is our favorite car!

We faced a 3 hour drive to return to Arizona and then south into the foothills near the town of Benson.  We arrived at the Kartchner Caverns State Park and discovered a lovely park with wide spaces between each campsite and lots of desert trees adding to the ambiance.   There are sites with 50 amp electricity, water, picnic tables and a fire ring for RVs such as ours, other sites just for tent camping and even some small adobe cabins (casitas) for those who want to rough it with the comforts of home.

We will be here for 4 nights which will give us a day to rest (tomorrow), a day to explore the caverns, and a day to drive over to nearby Tombstone and explore there.  After that, it will be on to Tucson for a couple of days before we continue west toward Southern California.