kearny

My 20th day on the trail is a rest day
After packing up, I had to hike only 1-2 miles before reaching the end of the trail. I soon looked over a little valley with the muddy brown Gila River rushing below me with big green trees, scattered houses and a highway that narrowed to a one lane bridge. It was the desert version of a New England village scene, with the Asarco copper mine standing in for the granite mountain towering over everything.

In this region, the copper mines dominate life and landscape. The town of Kearny was actually created in 1958 by a copper company when the growth of its open pit mine destroyed three other towns and they needed a place to move all of the workers. The mine if still the biggest employer in town, and even though Arizona still supplies most of Americas copper, there were layoffs at the mine last year.

Feeling free to do whatever, I walked a bit along the highway past mobile homes, adobe ruins and territorial style mining houses, then hitched a ride into Kearny 6 miles east. My ride dropped me at the laundromat. I spent the afternoon killing time, catching up on stuff and resting my feet. A few hours at the laundromat (with posters on the wall warning parents to keep their kids off the machines), lunch at CJ’s market (near an older guy having ice cream with his 6 year old great granddaughter). I wrote some blog posts at the Kearny library (where the popcorn is free but you can only use the PCs in one hour increments). They had to close early because it was library night. I don’t know what librarians do on library night but they were pretty fired up about it.

After leaving the library I trudged thru the residential part of town up the hill to the business district. The residential part was laid out in 6-7 big semicircles all radiating outwards from the business district. All the houses were small, tidy and looked as if they had been built at the same time by the same developer – a little western Levittown. The population is only down to 2000 from a high of 3000 in the last 60’s. I passed kids riding bikes on their way to baseball practice.

My motel was in the business district, which was one strip of highway about half a mile long with one story buildings on either side. The Pinal County Courthouse looked historic, the rest straight from the late 50’s and 60’s. The motel was on the far eastern end of the street, across from family dollar. Looking to check in, I opened the door to the side of the motel building and walked from bright desert sun into a dark barroom. A group of about 5-6 young, beefy, bearded guys turned to look at me and then went back to their conversation. Thinking I had opened the wrong door I went to the other side of the building only to realize that the motel reception desk WAS the bar, and the receptionist was actually Ashley the bartender. Kearney didn’t feel cozy.

My brother Chris drove up from Tucson to bring me some re-supply: new sleeping pad, water bag and (yes I give up) a small tent to replace the bivy. We got beers from Ashley and took them outside to a picnic table by the horseshoe pits. After a while, we ordered Mexican food for the restaurant next to the bar and the waitress brought it outside to us. We sipped our beers, ate our enchiladas and talked about life as the sun set and the air cooled. The group of beefy, bearded guys ventured out to the grass near us playing some type of balance game. They were nice guys joking pleasantly with each other and calling me sir when I asked about the game. The waitress from the Mexican place kept coming out to make sure we had what we needed, and when it got dark she flipped on the outside lights so the courtyard between the motel/bar/restaurant was slightly lit. Chris and I agreed that Kearny was actually just fine.