El Paso TX

This morning we traveled south on AZ 80 through Tombstone into the Mule Mtns to the town of Bisbee at an elevation of 5300 ft. Bisbee is the location for copper mining. Mining began in 1877 and continued without interruption until 1975. Hundreds of millions of tons of ore have been removed from 2 open pits and nearly 2000 miles of under ground workings. All within a zone of about 2 by 3 miles and 4000 ft. deep. This has produced nearly 8 billion lbs. of copper ( a cube of copper 241 ft.deep the length of a football field). They are still producing copper by a process of leaching the pits and the underground mines. Leaving the Mule Mtns east of Bisbee we entered into a broad valley that had some irrigated fields in it. At Douglas, AZ on the boarder of Mexico AZ 80 turned northward traveling through a broad valley with the Chiricahua Mtns to the west and the Animas Mtns in New Mexico to the east. After traveling about 80 miles to the north east (about 1/2 in AZ and 1/2 in New Mexico) through grass lands and ranches we turned onto I-10 east bound passing through mostly flat desert until nearing Las Cruces, NM where we began to see some farming. Today we actually saw a few herds of cattle and lands that would support them. Tonight we are at an RV Park on the south edge of El Paso, TX.