Arizoning Out, part 4: Tombstone

Wednesday

Doug and I got up at an early (for us) hour, packed up our things and ate breakfast. We were on the road by 9:30 (our goal was 9) and it was hard to leave in a lot of ways.

I would have loved another day there.

Perhaps a visit down to the Pima Air Museum that day, and a walk around the older part of Tucson which we only got to drive through and I loved it.

We headed south west to Tombstone, because like any good tourist to New England I'd recommend you go to Salem and soak in that whole scene. Even with cheesy period costume attired tour guides all over the place.

So in Arizona... how could we be this close, and not go to Tombstone. I mean, really.

Coming into town the first stop was the famous Boot Hill Graveyard, where the grave markers had been painted and repainted over the years and didn't look very authentic, but the place was really cool overall. It also looks like 1882 was a bad year for that town...

We drove into town and discovered parking and walked over to the few square blocks of restaurants and businesses, and the aforementioned people dressed in period costume welcomed us. Very few people were there, it looked as if the season really had not gotten underway yet, or perhaps, not a lot of people actually come to Tombstone. I wasn't quite sure.

Speaking of period costume, we attended the reenactment of the infamous Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, ate a nice sandwich from Brenda's Chuckwagon and ate over at Cerveza's Cantina because one doesn't serve food and the other doesn't serve alcohol. Weird. Then we visited the Tombstone Courthouse museum, got a drink at the Crystal Palace Saloon, just to say we had been there (Since Big Nose Kate's was mobbed) and we also only had one drink because the bartender served us and ignored us, never coming around again to ask us if we wanted anything else.

We ended our day at the Bird Cage, the infamous Bird Cage as all the literature says. Little balcony "cribs line the upstairs and during shows (in fact, 24 hours a day) men would go up to the lady of their choice and have some quality time together. We toured around the building, backstage and downstairs where the world's longest poker game ever played had been conducted.

I could have done without all the creepy mannequins throughout the tour.

Leaving Tombstone, we headed south to Bisbee, which was a beautiful little town. Go see the website for evidence. Hipsters, hippies, artists, breweries, antiques... we spent a little time walking around and Doug wanted to beat feet to the east to get to New Mexico. I kind of wanted to stay the night there but the goal for that day was to actually make it to Silver City, NM. The road we wanted to take East was closed, so we had to drive all the way back up to Tombstone to get to the road that would take us to I-10.

And now, we have an interstitial post: Christine Hates this Hotel.