The Bisbee buzz

When your whole life revolves around a few acres and the same group of people, it's nice to get out and have a dose of what we consider "normalcy"; i.e., pavement, coffee shops, restaurants, stores, bars, strangers, anonymity. We'd been to Douglas a few times, but the highlight there is a Walmart and delicious carne asada (burritos). A few days ago, the night we saw the rattlesnake (see following post), we ventured further west and visited Bisbee, Arizona. It was so interesting and refershingly different that we went back yesterday with the room-7 posse.

It has all the stores and anonymity we crave, but as one of the "quirkiest towns in America" it isfar from normal.

Bisbee started as a mining town. No need to look that up on the web to know it, though. This pit is the first thing that greets you:




Then in the 1970s, long after the bottom feel out of mining, the artists and hippies started to flock here and eventually made it was it is today: antique shops, copper and turquise art shops, live music, art everywhere and an endless and varied array of odd characters. Tie-dyed shirts and hemp bags are still in fashion here, and lots of people just hang around in the parks and walking their dogs, and drive around in beat-up vintage trucks or art cars.


This place is really different compared to our Arizona experiences up to date. It felt like when we turned to corner after the mining pit, we were transported to a different far off familiar land. It was like being in Nelson, BC actually. Most of the town is uphill, people often don't pickup after their pooches, life happens at the coffee shop, and walls canvases.

See the B on the mountain? Common here. Douglas has a D.
Then again, Sudbury has a giant nickel, so who am I to talk...

I think this was the dog park.

My favourite.

And then there is the bizarre cornucopia of hilarious signs.

Can't... go... on... must... shop...

AAARGHHHH!

At first I thought it would be a great place to hang out for a while, but the throngs of tourists (and we were there in off season), lack of affordability and pot smell I think would drive me batty. Nice place to visit though. And I love spending afternoons poking around semi-affordable three-storey antique shops. If you are ever in Arizona, be sure to stop into this "Liberal Oasis in a Conservative Desert".