Coronado National Monument - Caving!

We are in Arizona!! Our first stop was in the south eastern area at the town of Sierra Vista - a fast growing area of "winter snowbirds" We wanted to see what it was like - nice but not for us. But nearby right at the border of Mexico is Coronado National Monument set aside to remember Francisco de Coronado - the Spanish explorer who left Mexico City looking for the "Lost Cities of Cibola (gold)" of local legend. He wanted to stake this gold for the Spanish crown. Unfortunately, he ended up in the middle of Kansas and did not find the gold he was looking for and had to return home a failure. But he opened this part of the country to further explorers. We hiked up a steep trail to a cave that is completely unimproved. That means you have to climb into a smallish opening, bring your own flashlight and explore a VERY DARK cave!! It was a bit scary at first, then fascinating as we picked our way carefully into the great room, past stalagtites, curtins of rocky solidified drips and even a dramatic Indian petroglyph painted on the wall. The flash of the camera provided a bit more light to add to our flahlights as we made our way to the end of the 600' cave. Quite an experience!
From here we drove to the top of Montezuma Pass at 6765' where we had a good view of the San Raphael Valley and Nogales, Mexico in the distance. We had planned to walk across the border at Nogales but changed our minds when the ranger told us it was 54 miles of dirt road to get there and that the US State Department was warning people about going there because drug lords had killed the sheriff and 4 deputies in broad daylight in the middle of town in November. Soooo ... we decided to head the other way and found a couple of Arizona wineries and tasted some local wines on our way home - yumm!