On a long and lonesome highway....: Empire Ranch Headquarters quick tour

Our Location: Las Cienegas Grasslands, Arizona

Cold morning here but the day warmed up nicely. Very little wind made the day much more enjoyable than many recent days. A clear blue sky with the sun shining brightly greeted us as we opened the door to step outside. Truly a very wonderful day here at the Empire Ranch near Sonoita, Arizona.

The mountains out our window have a lot more snow now.

After a light breakfast we both pulled on hoodies, grabbed our walking sticks and headed off the 2 1/4 mile walk to the Ranch House Headquarters. Today we thought we’d look around and see what life was like back in the day. The breeze was very slight with a bit of a coolish hint to it but it didn’t last long and soon just died away.

Today they started coming, most with horse trailers but many not. They turn left at the T in the road and head off to Oak Tree Canyon to the horse base camp.

We were stopped by and chatted with a couple of fellows a few sites down from us. I chatted with them other day as well but today we chatted about travels past and future. One couple is headed to Alaska, the other to Winnipeg, Manitoba some time over the summer. We chatted about a few things but soon were saying our goodbyes and safe travels. Riley and I continued on our way, trekking toward the Headquarters building.

This is the main entrance but it was an addition added to the first ranch house.

We arrived to find both Nick and Jeannie busy doing tours. I didn’t realize they gave tours on a regular basis or I would have been there for one but oh well, we just toured the Ranch House on our own. We didn’t get a chance to see the video either but we will be back and we will do both the video and the guided tour another year. So today I will leave you with only photos of our visit. We did spend about 20 minutes wandering around and reading the various placards depicting life on the ranch in it’s ‘living and working’ days.

On the side of the building. I hope you can read it.

From there we headed off back home, once again our feet taking us at a nice pace while we discussed our future travel plans. Very few cattle today that we could see, but we did manage to see a few way off in the distance. They are usually all along the roadway. The cattle have not come near the rig at any time, which I find amazing. Cows are naturally nosey and usually want to smell and lick everything, but not these ones. We also had a quick chat with Cheryl (our neighbour) as she was on her way back from collecting some water at the Ranch Headquarters. We were home less than two hours after leaving. A very nice bit of exercise. So about 4.5 miles today. Nice easy walking pace and good company along the way.

One of the original fireplaces. I think every room had one or at least most rooms.

We are scheduled to be in Natural Falls Park, near Tulsa, Ok on March 26 and we aren’t in any hurry to get there travel wise, but we are looking forward to meeting up with our friends. We’ve decided we’ll leave here on Saturday taking our time and traveling the distance over 10 days. We don’t intend to hurry but will spend probably a couple nights at most of our stops along the way.

The adobe walls are thick in the older part of the house.

I do have a couple of questions for those of you that have travelled or do travel I-44 out of Tulsa toward St. Louis. Is Interstate 44 a toll road? Partial toll? Or did I not zoom in enough to see that it’s a road beside the interstate that is a toll road? I’m also interested in US 412 of which there are two, one is a toll and one is not. Apparently the newer one is toll and OLD US 412 isn’t. Anyone out there know where to pick that one up? I’ve looked numerous times and haven’t been able to find OLD US 412, only the toll road. If not I think we’ll continue along I-40 and take one of the roads north to the park.

They painted over the fireplace. An interesting shade of blue, don't you think?

Back home we puttered around, had some lunch and spent some time reading and looking at the snow capped mountains. Very pretty. Our time is winding down here and tomorrow I’ll do all those pesky little things we do pre travel days. We never did unpack our patio stuff as the weather wasn’t really nice enough, so we don’t have a lot of packing up to do tomorrow.