Vacation-Day 4

Well kids Tuesday morning is when the RV park gets together for coffee & donuts at the clubhouse.  They have quilts that they make each year and then auction them off the next year for a charity.  The free donuts were great and it was nice to put a face to the people that your grandparents talk about.

After that we were off to see Tombstone which is one of the sites that I was looking forward to.  In case you don't know Tombstone is an old western town where the shootout at the OK Corral took place. 

Along the way we stopped at a missionary but they were closed for lunch.  We did get to see a couple things on the grounds and snap a couple pictures.

 

When you get this close to the Mexican border they have these border patrol stops on the highways.  Even though these are here everyday it sounds like they still catch quite a few people trying to sneak by...some of them running along the road.

 

 

Next stop was Boothill which is Tombstone's graveyard.  They had quite a few graves and all of them had some kind of words on the head stones.  I am always fascinated how young people were when they died or in some cases how old they were for that era.  I think Wyatt Earp lived till he was 80 which considering his reputation seemed like a long time.

 

A quick bite to eat and then more exploring

 

This is downtown Tombstone

 

I thought these were pretty cool and would add to the man's room but I didn't get one.

I am not sure what this guy was all about but he kind of reminded me of Kyle Petty

Big Nose Kate's Saloon

 

 

The Bird Cage was a brothel or a place to gamble and hire some ladies.  The men would buy these coins for $25 and give them to the ladies for 8 hours of pleasure...that's right 8 hours!  Then the ladies would turn them back in to the owner who got $20 of the $25.  There was a rule at the Bird Cage that if you passed out you were thrown out so the ladies caught on quick that if they got the men drunk they would pass out and then they could get another man.  Sometimes they would turn in 8-10 coins a night.  I thought that was pretty smart on their part but then I started thinking what's worse one man for 8 hours or 10 men for 8 hours!  Tough life back in those days.  

 

 

They also claim that the longest poker game in history was played here...24 hours a day for 8 years, 5 months and 3 days.  Legend has it that 10 million dollars changed hands in that time frame.

 

Throughout the day there are gun fights at the OK Corral and then people in the street dressed for that time frame.  This picture below is Wyatt Earp telling Billy the Kid that he has to turn in his guns since they were not allowed on the street.

 

After Tombstone we drove to an old mining town that the hippies have taken over called Bisbee.  There are lots of shops for your mother and grandmother to go through and as usual your grandfather and I sat in the car.  We did see the old mine which was pretty amazing...you can see the factory up on the hill.

 

The Shady Dell is also in Bisbee which some of you might have seen on TV.  The owner takes old travel trailers and fixes them up then rents them out to tourist...probably want-a-be hippies that really want to go home to their modern home.  Pretty cool place but we could only see it from behind the fence.  I thought the yacht one was the best and coolest idea.

 

 

Well we had a long day but it was well worth it (except for the extended shopping) and this should certainly be on your bucket list!