usa – ON THE ROAD with Maria + Stephen

Riding the Rails | Washington DC

08/10/2025 by Maria+Stephen, posted in Travel

Day One: As OTR considered some shorter trips for this fall we realized that we had not visited Washington DC since our sons were just youngsters. We also thought that it would be fun to try the Amtrak NextGen Acela in lieu of driving or flying.

We boarded the Acela at Union Station in New Haven for the approximately five hour journey to Union Station in Washington DC. While the Acela is billed as high speed it can attain high speeds for just two short stretches along the crowded Northeast corridor. We could have driven in under six hours but we avoid the I95 corridor like the plague. We booked in business class which is not inexpensive but it was quite pleasant to just sit back and relax.

This was our first stay at a citizenM hotel. The company is based in the Netherlands and has 17 boutique hotels scattered around the globe. We were drawn by the proximity of the hotel to the National Mall area and The Wharf District and the very reasonable room rates.

In addition to the location, we enjoyed the very convenient (and tasty) breakfast buffet (legit specialty coffee as well) in the morning as well the roof top bar which serves excellent cocktails and affords wonderful views.

The one drawback for some guests would be the small size of the rooms. One of the ways that citizenM keeps their rates lower than other hotels in central areas is that every room is identical. We are not bothered with a smallish room (the bed is quite comfortable). Additionally, we enjoyed the tech approach that utilizes a bedside iPad to control climate, lights, curtains and media.

We recommend the citizenM for travelers looking for a casual but friendly experience, and wish to be within walking distance of many of the central attractions (and who are, of course, okay with smaller rooms).

We walked the short distance (under ten minutes) from the hotel to the Wharf District for our first evening’s dinner in the nation’s capital. The Wharf sits along the Potomac River which provides a lovely setting for outdoor dining. With the weather so delightful throughout our stay and so close to the hotel we found ourselves back at the Wharf each evening for cocktails and dinner at one of the many excellent restaurants along the promenade and river.

Since we were on the waterfront, we felt it was appropriate to begin our dining journey enjoying local sea food at Hank’s Oyster Bar. We were not disappointed – the local oysters were quite tasty. We heartily recommend the Wharf location for fresh seafood, excellent cocktails and the outdoor dining. Hank’s operates three locations in the area. This location at the Wharf is the newest having opened in 2017.

***The Wharf (Photo courtesy of The Wharf)***

Day Two: We were fortunate to have terrific weather for our stay , allowing us to view the city by foot during our forays from the citizenM.

The National Museum of African American History (NMAAH) was our first museum visit of the trip. This was also our first visit to the NMAAH, which opened in 2016.

***National Museum of African American History & Culture (Photo courtesy of NMAAHC)***

The building’s design is quite distinctive and reflects many architectural elements from Africa. The museum is much larger than one might anticipate from the exterior as it extends three stories below ground where the history galleries are located.

We started at the lowest level of the museum (Slavery and Freedom) which chronicles the years between 1400 and 1877. The next level up covered the period between 1876 and 1968 (The Era of Segregation). The final level within the history galleries is devoted to 1968 and beyond (A Changing America).

We have previously visited a number of museums which chronicle the history of slavery, racism and the civil rights movement in the United States (Birmingham Civil Rights Museum, Rosa Parks Museum, Legacy Museum). We found the distinguishng feature of the NMAAH to be the keen focus on the many countributions made by African Americans to the development of the United States even as they lived and died as enslaved individuals. African Americans served in the Continental Army under George Washington and the Union Army during the Civil War making substantial contributions to the outcomes.

***John Hope Franklin Contemplative Court***

We spent a full four hours exploring the museum. The floors above ground have a number of community and art galleries. The photos and curators notes below are some of the art we found interesting. We think that the NMAAH is an essential part of a Washigton visit if you have not been previously.

After our museum visit we ventured north to the Union Market District in the NoMa (North of Massachusetts Avenue) neighborhood. After re-charging with a stop at Blue Bottle Coffee we toured the neighborhood. The area has served as a food market dating back to the 1870s. Today it is in the midst of a large scale gentrification although there are still a number of food wholesalers operating in the neighborhood.

After expolring the market area we went back to the citizenM to freshen up and then set out to the Wharf for dinner at the Pink Tiger. We dined al fresco, enjoying another beautiful evening and the Tiger’s Asian fusion offerings.

Day Three: The International Spy Museum was our first agenda item of the day. The museum is an independent non-profit organization which first opened in 2002. The current facility opened in 2019.

***International Spy Museum, L’Enfant, Washington DC***

The current edition of the museum is very much oriented to the use of technology and gaming – visitors can can adopt a secret code name and pursue an undercover mission as part of the tour of the museum. This museum was about a 90 minute visit for us. Fun and easy.

After successfully completing our undercover missions at the spy museum we journeyed north to the Adams Morgan neighborhood for fika at Tryst DC | Coffee House & Bar. Tryst is a fixture of the neighborhood having opened in 1998.

After our caffiene refueling mission was completed, we walked through the neighborhood taking in the colorful row houses and interesting shops. We decided to grab some additional steps by walking back to the hotel via the White House. There was not much happening outside the White House grounds other than a protest – does four people qualify as a protest? As our assistance in safeguarding the White House was not required we took the obligatory selfie and returned to the hotel for our pre -dinner lie down.

Day Four: We filed our flight plan to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. After our short flight and on time arrival we spent several hours exploring the museum. The Washington location houses mostly commercial and experimental aircraft with the exception of the WW 1 gallery. We were also treated to an enhanced version of the IMAX movie following the Blue Angel team from winter training through to the end of the show season. As we are aviation fans the Air and Space will always be considered an essential stop during any visit to Washington.

After earning our wings at the Air and Space we spent the afternoon at the National Art Gallery East. We visited exhibits of paintings by Modigliani, Braque, Picasso and a quick pass through the Rothko gallery (for Chris).

***Amedeo Modigliani (1884- 1920) Madame Amedee (Woman with Cigarette)***

***Capitol from Terrace, National Gallery of Art East***

We closed out Day Four enjoying a cocktail on the rooftop and the spectacular view of the Capitol and a Blood Moon.

Day Five: Since our train was departing mid afternoon we put the morning to use visiting the NGA Sculpture garden, followed by a visit to St. Dominic Catholic Church.

St. Dominic Catholic Church is under the guidance of the Order of Preachers (Dominicans). While the church was established in 1852, the land was owned by Catholic families as early as 1735.

After touring the church we returned to the citizenM to grab our luggage and head to Union Station for our return trip via the Amtrak Acella.

Be seeing you!

P.S. We observed regular patrols of National Guard soldiers in the tourist areas of downtown and en masse at Union Station. We did not observe any soldiers while we were exploring neighborhoods. The Trump posters pictured above are prominently and frequently on display outside of the downtown area of the city.

King of Arizona

16/04/202502/05/2025 by Maria+Stephen, posted in 4WD Drive, Adventure Van Travel, Boondocking, Overlanding, Scenic Drive, Travel

We are going to start this post with a question. Who thinks the Beast was able to navigate this ledge? We will provide the answer later in this post.

After our trip across El Camino del Diablo and up to the Fortuna Mine we spent a couple nights in Yuma. We cannot say that Yuma is our favorite town but we needed to have our bikes serviced and repaired as a result of the bike rack breaking as we crossed the El Camino. The photo below shows the Beast after we made makeshift repairs to secure the bikes and rack. Note the now oval shaped front wheel on the blue bike.

Our bikes would not be ready for five days as the misshapen front wheel was irrepairable and the new wheel was apparently coming via stagecoach.

Cafecito, which was our home base in Yuma, is on Main Street along with several restaurants, bars, mercantiles, a theater and city governmental offices. Cafecito was the perfect spot for modifying our travel plans with its excellent drinks, toasts and bowls. The space is immense with 10,000 square feet of indoor and outdoor seating. Please find the owners’ bittersweet story in the link below. Here we revised our itinerary to head north to the Northern Sonoran Desert and the KOFA NWR and then loop back south to (hopefully) collect our bikes.

https://www.cafecitoyuma.com/our-story.html

We departed Yuma via 95 North passing through the Yuma Army Proving Ground and the Castle Dome Mountains ( we transited the Castle Dome on a previous adventure) to our east; then turning at Palm Canyon Road. We followed the road until its terminus at the entrance to the Palm Canyon Trail.

Palm Canyon, KOFA NWR

Palm Canyon is a narrow, relatively short but rugged canyon. What distinguishes this canyon from other canyons in the KOFA is that there are California Fan Palms nestled up on the north side of the canyon. These Fan Palms are believed to be the only California Palm Trees in Arizona. In the photo below left you can see the palms tucked into the side of the canyon.

After hiking back down the canyon to the trailhead we drove back west on Palm Canyon Road to scout out a good camping spot – not to difficult actually!

Every evening and morning is a treat in the desert with spectacular sunsets, starry black nights and gorgeous sunrises.

The next morning we set out to explore the nearby KOFA Queen Canyon Trail. The road is a rocky affair that winds up the narrow canyon with jagged peaks framing the canyon on both sides. The trail itself becomes progressively rougher and narrower. At the eight mile mark the USFWS has closed the trail to make sure people do not try to proceed further as the next mile of trail across the Big Horn Pass is impassable regardless of weather conditions.

Queen Canyon

On the drive out and back we stopped several times and wandered out through several of the many washes that run through the canyon. Beautiful blue sky, a gentle breeze and total silence!

Waking up to another beautiful, sunny, blue sky day with 75F temperatures never becomes tiresome – in case you were wondering. For our third sortie in the KOFA we opted to go a bit further north and skirt the KOFA mountains and follow the Valve 2 Road eastward to the High Six. The High Six Tank is a deep bedrock water pool.

We assume somewhere in the vicinity of this road there is a Valve 2. The El Paso Natural Gas pipeline carries natural gas from the Permian Basin to a number of western states. The pipelines are buried but there are valves above ground that we observed in other parts of the desert.

From our campsite we would need to navigate approximately ten miles with the Beast to reach the trail for the High Six. If we could reach the trail for the tank we planned to make the short climb up to the tank. It appeared based on our reading of the topo map that elevation gain from Valve 2 Road to the tank was only 150 feet.

While ten miles doesn’t seem much like much terrain to cover we were not able to reach the High Six Trailhead.The photos below show the spot where we had to concede on getting to the High Six. We tried several different approaches to tackling this drop but we just did not have the clearance.

With the premature demise of this adventure we quickly regrouped and decided it was time for a cocktail! We backed down the trail until we found a spot for a 100-point K turn, headed west for the pavement and then north seeking food and beverages in Quartzite (about 20 miles north on Highway 95).

***Silly Al’s Pizza, Quartzite, Arizona***

Silly Al’s Pizza was packed but we secured a hightop in the bar. If we had thought about it, we would have realized that Quartzite would have a crowd on a Sunday afternoon as the town is a major snowbird location and home to many gem and mineral shows during the winter months. The cocktails were excellent – the pizza decent – the restaurant makes their own dough. The problem is no one outside the Northeast puts enough char on the pie!

The following day we made our last foray into the desert before returning to Yuma to collect our bicycles. We opted to head west towards the California border and check out some old mining sights.

We visited the abandoned Gold Eye Mine, which was owned by Lehre Erdman. This not much history other than Erdman started this mine and worked it for 63 years. Erdman died in 1996. The remnants of the stone cottage he built and lived in are still standing at the mine sight.

There are a number of mines in the area we explored. Many are abandoned but there are a fair number of claims being worked on a small scale. If you are interested in mining for gold call the phone number in the photo above!

Our next post will provide a glimpse of our visit to Phoenix.

Be seeing you!

Over the Mountain and Across the Valley

24/03/202502/05/2025 by Maria+Stephen, posted in 4WD Drive, Adventure Van Travel, Scenic Drive, The American West, Travel

As we departed Bisbee (see previous post) we decided to make a quick detour to the border to check out the small town of Naco.

Naco, Arizona is a census designated place with a population of 1176. Naco, Sonora, the sister city (pop. 6064), is immediately on the other side of the border. While the border was finalized by the Gadsden Treaty of 1853, the two Nacos functioned as a single community regarding everyday living. Recently, Naco, Sonora was also very popular with United States citizens who could easily cross the border and purchase prescription drugs and other items (see Pancho Villa post) . Additionally, the younger drinking age in Mexico (18 vs. 21 Arizona) saw many teens crossing over for an evening of drinking.

The situation changed dramatically during the 1990’s as routes for smuggling migrants and drugs moved to this area after other parts of the border were more effectively sealed. The reverse flow of the smuggling business is the movement of large quantities of weapons south from the U.S. into Mexico for use by drug cartels (shameful).

The increase in smuggling coupled with 9/11 resulted in much tighter security. Residents were no longer able to cross back and forth across the border as freely. The completion of a new border fence in 2017 (pictured above) made the separation of the two towns very real. The residents of Naco, Arizona were not apprised of the new fence – they literally woke up one morning to the sound of construction equipment rolling into town.

***United States Border Station, Naco, Arizona***

Many residents claim that this event was the beginning of the end for Naco from a business perspective. An additional factor is that the port of entry restricted its operating hours – moving from 24 hours per day to closing at 10:00 PM – sending more traffic to Douglas where the port of entry is 24/7. Today, there is just one remaining business in Naco.

The last business standing in Naco is not unsurprisingly a bar! But not just any bar it is the Gay 90’s Bar as in the 1890s! The bar, which serves food, has pool tables and live music, has been in business since 1931. Why anyone would open a bar during prohibition does not make sense on surface of the issue, but there is probably more to the story than we will ever know. More importantly, they are still in business despite all the turmoil and hard times.

After our brief and somewhat depressing stop in Naco, we cotinued west across beautiful grasslands and entered the Coronado National Memorial. We had visited the Memorial in 2019 to explore the Coronado Cave but did not continue up to the pass. The photographs below are from our caving adventure in 2019. The entrance to the cave is a half mile hike up the south slope of Montezuma Peak and definitely worth the trip. The cave is 600 feet long with lots of small spurs.

Back tothe present — we wound our way up the canyon road of the 7640 foot high Montezuma Peak and stopped at the pass to take in the views back to the east and west to the immense (330 square miles) San Rafael Valley.

Montezuma Canyon Road

***View West from Montezuma Pass — San Rafael Valley — Huachuca Mountains to the North***

The road beyond the pass heading west is best suited to 4WD, high clearance vehicles as it becomes progressively more rutted and rocky.

Montezuma Canyon Road

From the pass we continued down the road admiring the views of the valley below. It is hard for us to fathom that the majority of the valley’s 90,000 acres is privately owned by a handful of ranchers. But then again, the valley has been home to cattle ranching for 175 years!

The largest ranch in the valley was owned and operated by the Sharp family from 1903 to 1999. The ranch, The San Rafael Ranch, lies in the center of the valley and consisted of 22,000 acres. The state acquired the land and designated it as natural area in order to protect what is considered the finest stand of grassland in the state. Sadly, when the state purchased the land and designated it as a natural area, it closed access to the ranch house and all of the property (although the state allows the remaining ranchers to graze their cattle on the land). The other interesting historical note is that the property that comprised the ranch was the last remaining intact Spanish Land Grant (well, we think it is interesting).

***San Rafael Ranch House (Photo courtesy of SouthernArizonaGuide.com)***

Being very cognizant of the fact that we were traveling through a fragile area, we carefully followed an established track which took us out through the grasslands. The video below provides some perspective of the experience of riding through the grasslands with the mountains ahead of us — quite spectacular!

San Rafael Valley

After our jaunt through the grass we returned to the road to complete our crossing of the valley.

***Patagonia Mountains*** ***Left — Canelo Hills Right***

At the end of the drive across the valley, we arrived at the border town of Lochiel. The town was originally named La Noria by Mexican settlers. It was renamed Lochiel (Low—Keel) in 1885 by rancher Colin Cameron in honor of his Scottish ancestors.

Lochiel is often described as a ghost town but it appears there a handful of inhabitants. Our research comes up with ten people. We don’t think anyone really knows and historical records indicate that the population peaked at 400 when the mine in nearby Patagonia was in full operation. We can’t warrant that anyone actually lives there because while we saw several dwellings that appeared to be inhabited we did not see any people while in Lochiel. In fact, we only saw one person during our ride across the valley — a man in a pick up truck — who we let pass us by as he was traveling at a much higher rate of speed than we could or would on the rough and winding road.

We visited the red schoolhouse pictured above. It is an adobe structure and operated as a classic one room schoolhouse for all of the children in town. The schoolhouse began operation in 1892 and closed in 1972 in response to declining enrollment. The remaining kids were bussed to school in Patagonia. Today the school is maintained by the Patagonia Museum.

There is also small church in Lochiel. We could not visit the church as the fence around the church is gated and locked. It appears to be of adobe construction as well. The fence directly behind the church is the border fence with Mexico. We unfortunately could not find any history regarding the church.

***Lochiel Church (Photo courtesy of Wikimedia)***

We mentioned that Lochiel is a border town. The border fence here is just a chain link fence with some barbed wire on top. Quite a contrast from the other sections of the border we have seen on this trip. Years ago, from the 1960s until 1983 there was a port of entry in Lochiel. It was operated by Customs Inspector Helen Mills during the 60s and 70s and then Custom Inspector Mike Daniels until closing in 1983. We found some fantastic photos (below) of Helen and the port of entry from an article in Tucson.com

Well, that is our report on our experience overlanding through the Coronado Memorial NM and the San Rafael Valley. This trip really helped us to envision a different time in our country.

From Lochiel we drove north and camped in the Patagonia Mountains for an evening. Our next segment will take us to Mission San Jose’ de Tumaca’cori north of Nogales and then on up to Tucson for a city segment.

Be seeing you!

Bisbee…….for a night or two or three or four

15/03/202502/05/2025 by Maria+Stephen, posted in 4WD Drive, Dining, Scenic Drive, Street Art and Murals, The American West, Travel

Gadsden Hotel—Douglas, Arizona

The morning after our foray into Puerto Palomas we broke camp and lit out for the Arizona border. We followed NM 9 to its terminus just before the Arizona border (completing our crossing of New Mexico on NM 9). From there we rejoined US 80 (which we had driven on from Montgomery, Alabama to the Texas/New Mexico border) on the roughly three hour drive from Columbus, NM to another border town- Douglas, Arizona.

We had passed through Douglas in 2019 and stopped for lunch at the restaurant located in the Gadsden Hotel. We made a note that if any future road trips brought us close to Douglas, we would stay the night and enjoy cocktails sitting in the Henry Trost designed lobby. As we were ultimately heading to one of our favorite weird towns, Bisbee, just west of Douglas, that is just what we did.

The Gadsden is not much to look at from the outside, but the interior, especially the lobby, is quite impressive. We have stayed at six hotels designed by the architect Henry Trost (1860-1933). His firm, Trost & Trost was based in El Paso, Texas and designed over 600 buildings in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona as well as Mexico. Trost & Trost heavily influenced the look of the Southwest and still does today with over 100 of their structures still standing.

The article embedded below provides a brief history of the hotel and the town of Douglas.

About

After our enjoyable night at the Gadsden Hotel we made the short trip to Bisbee. We had visited Bisbee in 2019 and chronicled the interesting history of the town at that time (see our post Bisbee, AZ 03.20.2019)

On this trip, we stayed at the Bisbee Grand Hotel right in the heart of downtown Bisbee. The Grand has been in business since 1906. The hotel describes itself as a place where “the rugged charm of the Old West blends with modern comfort”. Modern might be a bit of a stretch, but the hotel is great. Everyone on staff is friendly and helpful. The first floor has a great bar and restaurant, and there is live music just about every night. Booze, beds, food (and music)! The formula certainly works for us. We will come back to our stay at the Grand later in the post.

Bisbee is no longer a mining town, other than the daily tours of the Copper Queen Mine (we did the mine tour on our previous visit – it is excellent – you ride into the mine on the train that carried the miners deep into the mountain). After the mine closed the population decreased for several years but has reversed course as the town has become home to a plethora of artists, musicians and people who just want to do their own thing.

When we visited Bisbee in 2019 Stephen became a devoted customer of Optimo Hatworks. Optimo is a milliner and renovator. The shop has been in business for around 50 years. Knowing that we were heading back to Bisbee, Stephen planned on a renovation for his 2019 panama and having a new hat made. Below left, Karen fitting the hat with their hat fitting tool aka medieval torture device. Below right, renovated panama with new band.

Now that a successful trip is assured with a renovated hat in hand and a new hat scheduled to arrive at The Fort in approximately three months, let’s get to the coffee portion of our Bisbee stay.

https://www.optimohatworks.com/

Allen & Co Espresso House opened in October 2024. The space was previously occupied by Kafka, another specialty coffee shop, for many years. When Kafka closed, husband and wife John and Kelsey Allen jumped at the chance to open their own cafe. When we were frequenting the cafe during our stay they had just celebrated the cafe’s four month anniversary.

***Allen & Company Espresso House, Subway Street, Bisbee***

The timing of the opportunity worked perfectly as Scott and Kelsey had just returned from a one year, 29 state photography assignment when the space became available. Scott is also an experienced barista and he makes a mean cortado. Best of luck to Scott and Kelsey (and their newest family member Pip – pictured above with Maria)!

On a related topic Bisbee is home to Patisserie Jacqui. The patisserie was named a James Beard semifinalist in the outstanding bakery category. The patisserie has a line down the street each morning because they sell out quickly. As soon as we pulled up in front of the hotel, Maria bolted up the hill to get on line. She snagged a pistachio chocolate snail and a morning bun. Beyond delicious!

We mentioned earlier that Bisbee has become a hub for many artists. There is public art on display all around the town. We have included below several photos of artwork from around town and the Bisbee Art Wall located in the alleyway between 24 and 26 Broadway (the area below the alley is known locally as Beer Gulch — bars and brothels were located on this street in the mining era).

We spent an afternoon walkabout exploring some areas in the maze of streets and alleys that we had not visited during our previous stay. In particular, we walked out Brewery Avenue from the Old Bisbee Park until we reached Zacatecas Canyon. We followed the road up the canyon until we came upon a closed gate and private property signs. You do not under any circumstance trespass on private property in the West.

We spotted a number of interesting homes and buildings and nice views of the canyon walls (and great exercise at 5600 feet elevation).

On our last evening in Bisbee, we walked up Tombstone Hill for dinner at Thuy’s Noodle Shop. We had read an article about Thuy Dang in Arizona Highways Magazine; she moved to Bisbee from Vietnam nine years ago. Thuy desperately missed Vietnamese food and decided to address the issue by opening a noodle shop. She spent two years perfecting her recipes before opening the shop.

https://www.arizonahighways.com/business/thuys-noodle-shop

The food was delicious! We have to admit that we probably would not have tried a pho shop in Bisbee if we had not seen the article and then spoken with John at Allen & Company Espresso. Lesson learned (although we have learned the hard way that pizza outside the northeast is invariably mediocre at best).

We will finish up this post with the Grand Bisbee Hotel. We had originally booked one night thinking we would have dinner, take care of business at Optimo Hatworks and be on our way. But there is just something about Bisbee (for us)- the place, the people that kept us from leaving. Everybody has a story in Bisbee (and they are usually quite interesting). So everyday we ended up at the bar/front desk asking to extend our stay. Fortunately the hotel was able to accommodate our requests, although we ended up staying in three different rooms, all “unique” for lack of a better term (photos below).

One of the interesting people we met in Bisbee was Alice. She was a competitive shooter wielding six shooters at targets while riding her horse. Alice also owned a bar in Sonoita (a nearby census designated place, population 803) for 15 years. She shared with us how she kept the peace when her bar filled up with thirsty and eventually rowdy bikers. Let’s just say don’t mess with Alice!

Our next segment will take us west through the Coronado National Monument and across the magnificent and isolated St. Raphael Valley (which extends into Mexico).

Be seeing you!