I got home late tonight from work, so Craig and I didn’t really have time to gear up and head over to Fantasy Island as planned….and neither of us had the energy or motivation to do a run.  So we decided just to hop on our bikes and tool around our own neighborhood and do some exploring – hoping to find an unknown trail we can use in just such a circumstance.  We didn’t really find any, but spent some time just playing around on the quad trails, riding along the wash, and seeing what we could discover.  It HAS to be better than my over-sized @ss sitting on the couch (though I did miss an hour of football for it).

On an interesting side note (because what would a Dottie blog be without senseless and unrelated digressions), it was pointed out to me by my wonderful husband that at my highest speed today I was still only going half as fast as Adrian Peterson on his 75 yard touchdown.  DAMN!

Back to the point.

We were losing daylight, so we decided to cut through the golf course and take the cart path back to the walking path (we have a lot of paths, I know) of the main road to our house.  No sooner did we hit the walking path, than I slammed on the brakes and made Craig backtrack with me…because SURELY I didn’t just see what I know I saw.  It’s not possible.  I live in the middle of a large planned development on a very nice golf course.

THAT was wishful thinking, because FOR REALS – I saw what I saw.  Three graves – no more than than 5 feet from the walking path – off to the side of like the 11th hole, surrounded by a small chain link fence.

?!?!?!?

We walked up the little 1 foot slope to find they were the graves of 3 babies.  Each one had a small headstone – all uniformly shaped and inscribed, with a little pot of plastic flowers for each.  The first was of Lillian Lively who was born and died in 1898.  Next to her was Edna (I think) Harris who was also was born and had died in 1898, and the last was Mera Harris – born in 1901 and died in 1903.  Each grave was surrounded in a tiny little rock mound.

It was completely surreal.  Like stepping instantly back in time – completely out of the blue.  Not like when you expect it because you’ve driven up to Tombstone to see where the Earp’s and Clanton’s are buried.  Right in the middle of our tiny suburb.  I would imagine that they were discovered during development and the chain link fence was put up and padlocked around them to protect them.  I’m interested to know who is maintaining these after all these years.  Who is putting flowers and pots at the head of each?

I’m going to do some googling and see if I can find anything about the families that lived in this area at that time.  This just isn’t anything you ever expect to find when you’re out wandering the neighborhood.  It makes you wonder about the people, the work they did, the homes they kept, and the pain they must have faced in losing such young children.  And it reminded me about the history of the region in which I’ve lined for so long.  This truly is the wild west, where we still carry guns (and not in a thug way…though we do have that too I guess), where we’re just up the street from old high-noon shootouts, where good guys and bad guys would travel on horseback through what is to me the 4th fairway, going from Tombstone to Bisbee to Tucson and on to Phoenix – a trip that took days…

I’m so very intrigued by this new found history on my street.