Cochise County

It was virtually 11.00am that we finally said “Goodbye” to Charlie & hit the road in the ‘Doodle’, our nickname for our VW Beetle. We drove south through Tucson & picked up Interstate 10 eastbound. At Benson, we came off & headed south on the Arizona 80, arriving in Tombstone not long after midday.

The first site we came to in Tombstone was Boot Hill Cemetery, now our 4th. We drove through Tombstone on the main drag & were out the other side before we knew it. We turned round & parked up in a free car park opposite the O.K. Corral Gunfight Site, the legendary historic site where the gunfight between Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, Virgil and Morgan Earp, and the Clantons and McLaurys took place on 26th October 1881.

We wandered into the historic back streets of Tombstone & pretty much immediately decided we would probably stay the night here. At a ticket booth, we looked at was on offer & decided to book a triple tour of a Gunfight Show, a Tombstone Trolley Ride & a Ghost & Murder Tour. We spoke to Tony who was a cowboy selling the tickets & told him we would be back when we had booked some accommodation. Before we knew it, Tony had made a phone call & secured us a motel room for $85.

We bought our tickets, then rushed to the Gunfight Show starting at 1.00pm. It was a very funny slapstick show that lasted nearly an hour. We had time for just a quick ice cream, before we were on the Tombstone Trolley Tour. The Trolley Tour was good, it pointed out numerous places of interest & provided us with a bit of a history lesson.

Tombstone has numerous places of interest, apart from the O.K. Corral, it has the Tombstone Courthouse, with it’s gallows immediately behind; The Bird Cage Theatre, scene of multiple murders; Big Nose Kate’s Saloon, Big Nose Kate was Doc Holliday’s girlfriend; Crystal Palace Saloon, that sold beer in crystal glasses & The Rose Tree Museum, which has the world’s largest Rose Tree. In the 13 years that Tombstone was predominantly mined, it produced $38 million worth of silver, which by today’s prices would be worth $1.9 trillion.

After the Trolley Tour, we returned to our car & drove to the Trail Riders Inn, just a couple of blocks away. It looked perfectly adequate, so we went into the office & met the manager, Kevin, who agreed that we could have a room for $85 plus tax. We negotiated to $85 & no tax if we paid him cash. Kevin was a nice bloke suffering from PTSD, he is ex Military & a Fire Fighter.

We hung around at the motel until 5.30pm, then headed the couple of hundred yards back into the Historic parts of Tombstone to take some photos of locations pointed out on the tour. Just before 6.00pm we popped into Big Nose Kate’s Saloon for a pitcher of beer & Chicken wings & a steak cheese sandwich. The food was exceptionally good & cheap! A band were playing, we were served by a corset wearing waitress & people were dancing. It was a good atmosphere.

At 8.00pm, we joined the Ghost & Murder Tour. We visited most of the same sites again, but this time the focus was on who & how people were murdered there & what ghosts are now present at these scenes. The murder stories were interesting, but as a non believer, the ghost stories were a bit cheesy.

At the conclusion, we were going to pop into Doc Holliday’s Bar, where Kevin was hosting a karaoke evening. It looked a bit to rough & ready, with few customers, so we headed back to the motel for a beer on our porch.

Song of the Day - Tombstone by Civil War.

Bonus Song of the Day :-

The Last Gunfighter Ballad by Johnny Cash
Shadowplay by Joy Division
Ghosts by JapanLæs mere