Friday, March 26, 2010

Today was to be a down day, a day for relaxing and doing laundry and in general catching our breath. The SKP park has laundry facilities which I took advantage of, so we are all clean again. However, Gordon just couldn't sit still, so after lunch the four of us drove to St. David, just a short drive from Benson, to visit the Holy Trinity Monastery. It was very windy today, but wasn't so noticeable as we walked thru the Trinity Bird Sanctuary down to the San Pedro River, where we actually saw a bit of water. There are three lakes on the Monastery property.

Today was our day for seeing all kinds of huge trees, some looking like they had been dead for years, but if you look close you will see live branches sticking out of them somewhere. It was so amazing to see trees of this size out here in the desert.

The Monastery totals 160 acres and has two priests and four monks. The bulk of the work is done by volunteers. There are about 25 campsites for volunteers that spend the winter. It costs $350.00 per month and you must put in two hours in the morning and two hours in the afternoon five days per week.

There are 150 pecan trees on the property, which they harvest, around the end of December, process and sell. The picture with the white and red machines is the processing room.

They have several buildings for retreats and Meditation area which includes the pond which have the fish in it.

The large cross shows up from a great distance away.

I was told that the Mormons founded and settled St. David but were driven out by the Apache. There is a Mormon Battalion sign on the church in Benson.

There were several years in the Douglas area where the annual rainfall was 19.83". Then, after a few years following the ranchers arrival the rainfall fell to around 12", which was not enough to keep the large ranches going, so many of the settlers left.

I was so looking forward to visiting the Texas John Slaughter Ranch, but it was closed by the time we arrived. Maybe another year.