Returning from exploring the Sonoita Creek Preserve and the Paton Hummingbird Center we decide to walk into downtown and find a place for lunch and to look for souvenirs. Downtown is not that far away really just a few streets away and we walk down to it passing abandoned and less abandoned buildings on the way.
We explore the small downtown area thoroughly including the winery we visited the previous evening. And then it is time to find a restaurant for lunch as we are quite hungry by now.
The restaurant we have chosen is the Wagon Wheel Saloon which looks quite closed initially but luckily is open so we go inside and now it is time to choose what to eat from the menu.
It takes a bit to get served but the food is reasonable if not exceptional and we are quite full by the end of the meal. And replenished it is time for the next item on the agenda, the Patagonia Museum.
For that we have to cross again the downtown area and now we stop to explore also all the souvenir shops before returning towards our AirBnB next to which the museum is located.
The museum is located in quite an impressive building. It is the former school and from the outside it looks like a mansion. It has very limited opening hours so we are happy to see that the door is open and our information was correct.
The museum is quite empty, so empty in fact that the greeter doesn’t even observe us while we enter and start exploring the museum. The first room we enter is the prehistoric section with artifacts from the Native Americans that inhabited the area.
The most special artifacts are the pottery shards and objects found nearby with some other sections dedicated to more recent finds like blacksmith tools and other settler related objects.
Exiting the first room the guardian finally observes us and ends the call and gives us some information about the layout of the museum and then it is time to continue exploring the next room. Which is mostly doctor or pharmacy related, lots of utensils and objects related to those professions.
Another section is dedicated to more common items. There is a reproduction of a typical Western store with some fun items and we also learn here about the interesting purple glass. It wasn’t supposed to be purple but given the chemical composition it become purple while sitting in the sun, quite interesting.
There is also a school section, of course there is given that we are in a former school. There are multiple aritifacts including an interesting school bench, we can see how the students here learned decades ago.
We also enjoy the next exhibit which is related to the criminals in Patagonia and what happened to them historically. They were either send to the hole, a jail cell in the hillside or where chained to the “Jail Tree” and left outside. Neither seems really fun in our opinion.
The last room is dedicated to the ranching community here with information about the major ranches here. And also a lot of focus on a cowgirl association that seems to have sponsored at least some exhibits. And then we are done and it is time to return to the AirBnB to rest a short while before continuing to our last hike for the day.
