Friday May 7, 2010

We got up early so that we could photograph many of the Tombstone buildings that were in the shadows last night. We stayed at a great campground just a block away from the action. Tombstone has really done a nice job of keeping the authenticity of the town while making it very friendly. The restaurants are reasonably priced, are housed in historic buildings and many offer free entertainment with your meal. Employees of many of the shops and restaurants have employees dressed in period garb and they are very friendly, allowing us to take pictures to our hearts’ content. Many of them appear to be starving actors, hoping for the big break. They know quite a bit about the history of Tombstone and willingly answer questions and offer information.

There are stagecoaches that offer tours of the town, as well as a trolley. The stagecoaches are horse or mule drawn and provide a thirty-minute overview of the town. There is also a gold mine tour into an actual gold mine, a show at the OK Corral and a neat tour of Boot Hill where many of the “bad guys” are buried. You can find Old Man Clayton, Billy and the McLaury brothers. Dennis lay down between two other graves and “posed” for a picture with his “weapon” (camera) on his chest. That will be good for a laugh some day. Well, I guess that’s good for a laugh right now. Ha, ha, ha.

Tombstone at one time had 35,000 registered residents. Women and children were never included in those days, so there were 35,000 men plus the ladies and kids. Additionally, there were 3,400 registered “ladies of the evening”. Let’s see, that is one loose woman for every ten men. They must have had a brisk business.

The town was a pleasure to visit and had we had more time, we could have easily stayed another day. If you ever go to Tucson, take the time and drive the 70 miles to Tombstone.



We did encounter another border patrol stop after we left Tombstone. Tombstone is very close to the Mexican border so it is not surprising. This is the third border patrol stop we have encountered.

After leaving Tombstone, we headed to the Pima Air and Space Museum, just south of Tucson. This museum rivals the Dayton Ohio museum. It includes a prop plane from John F. Kennedy’s fleet.

Next stop is the Saguaro National Park, home to the quintessential tall saguaro cacti (pronounced “sa-wha-ro”). Some are reported to be 50 feet tall. These are the cacti that you would see in the old westerns. They look like they have arms. The park is fantastic and we take a nine-mile drive that has many turnouts so that you can walk short trails or just take pictures in the parking areas. Getting near these cacti can be dangerous. Every one of these plants has prolific needles. You don’t even have to touch them to get them on your skin. I felt like a pincushion before I was finished.







We also saw other varieties of cacti that were blooming. How lucky we are to see these in bloom!

After the Saguaro driving tour, we head to our campground for the night. Tomorrow, we will head to downtown Tucson to photograph some iconic buildings.