Tombstone / Bisbee

The OK Corral. They have the whole thing fenced off and have built bleachers for the paying folks to see a reenactment of of the gunfight. We didn't check on the price, because we didn't want to sit out side and wait for an hour and a half for it to begin. The actual fight took place in the street in front of the old corral and that part has been rebuilt, into this movie set type place.


Rather we wandered the town looking for famous places. Everyone has heard of the bird cage. Folks were lined up to go thru this attraction as well.

How about the Silver Nugget?

The Longhorn seemed to be a sit down dinner kind of place today.


Hey look, here is a gal coming out of the Shady Lady clothing (if you can call it that) store.


Golden Eagle Brewery, and the Crystal Palace.


They advertise food, but when we went inside.....


It looked like an old time drinking establishment to me. Not much food, but they had a flat panel TV up front over the pool table. Sort of killed the 1880's effect for me anyway.


The stage has arrived, wonder what desperados are getting off this time. Oh no they are just tourists. Looks like the biker gal in the foreground, hasn't read the Arizona no smoking law, LOL.


Hey there is big nose Kate's. Wasn't she Doc Holliday's girl friend?

Hey they serve food, lets go take a look.


We ordered a sandwich and sat patiently waiting for our food or for a bad guy to burst in the door.


They had the one man band thing doing a country western gig. He posed for me, but I didn't tip him. Remember I'm tight.


This place is authentic, according to the bouncers that carried colt 45's and were dressed in period correct clothes.


After the meal, we went to the newspaper office.


They have the paper on display that was published after the gun fight. If you click on the photo, it will enlarge so you can read the account of the fight.


This is a museum, and here is one of the old lynotype machines.


Another machine, but I do not think these are from the 1880's. More like from the 1930's.


We drove on to Bisbee, Az. It is a town built in a valley. It has all the ambience of San Francisco, on the hills. No cable cars, but the town is not that big.


Looking South, this is a Copper Mining town that exists to support the miners, until 1976, when they closed the mine. Now it is totally a tourist trap.


I tried to take a picture of the explanation of the mine, but it wasn't too legible.


This is the Queen Ann Mine. It is a really big hole in the ground.


The mining buildings are on the other side of the massive dig.


We were worn down by now, so we headed back to Benson.

Here at the campground, propane has been a hot seller all day. I was almost first in line this morning, with my empty tank this morning. Seems that we have a good price here at the campground, $2.19 a gallon. So we have had a line up all day long. Even when we came home tonight, the pump is still filling the empty tanks.

It was quite cold for trailers last night, as we were well below freezing. That must have brought out the empty tanks, or so it would seem.

Tomorrow we will move on to Tucson, a whopping 45 miles East of here, but quite a bit lower in altitude. That will make us warmer at night.

Retired Rod

Benson, Az

Benson, Arizona is a small community 40 miles East of the large city of Tucson. I was tired of pulling the trailer day after day, and stopped at 200 miles today. It was nice and warm this afternoon, as we set up the rig. And no wind, Yeah!

We think we will go down to Tombstone tomorrow. It is a really touristy thing to do, but we have never been there before, and you know h0w that is, got to go experience it for ourselves. Just to say we have stood in the street next to the OK Corral. We were in Leadville, Colorado this summer, where Doc Holliday ended up after the folks in Tombstone kind of encouraged him to leave. We are following his footsteps so to speak.

I was reading up on the story, on the wikipedia tonight, so I can be a real authority (LOL) when I get there. What ever that might be.

We pulled into another KOA again for tonight, and it is not overly nice. But then it was only $29 and that is cheap by KOA standards. So no wonder it isn't too nice. The bathrooms are quite clean however, and Loyce spent some of the late afternoon doing up the laundry. She thought the laundry was clean as well. I would have heard about that, had it not been clean.

It always makes for more room in the trailer, once we put away all the clean clothes. Gets rid of the dirty laundry bags for a while.

It is supposed to be quite cold here tonight, down below freezing. Yeah I know, it is way colder than that up North, but this is a summer trailer, and the cold radiates in from all sides. To top it off, we ran out of propane in one of our front tanks tonight as well.

The other tank has not been used, and should be full. Famous last words. But we won't mess around, we'll go get the empty one filled tomorrow.

It is supposed to warm up for the weekend here, so it should become quite nice for next week.

We will stay here for two nights and then move on to Tucson.

Retired Rod

Las Cruces, NM

Not nearly as far today, only about 170 miles. We were up on Central time zone time since we didn't know exactly where the time zone change was. But we knew we would go to bed on the Mountain time zone.

I made the comment that we should get the heck out of Dodge, so we didn't battle the wind all day. We left the campground at 10 AM Central or 9 AM Mountain, and started Southwest. But as we climbed toward Apache pass, the winds picked up. We reached 7600 feet at the highest point. Not high by Colorado standards but quite a climb into 40mph winds.

And pick up the winds did. Part of the time I could barely go 45, and even then the truck would be in second gear and the engine would be over 3K in rpm. So easy does it was the order of the day. Were not in any hurry, and we did gain the hour, and we were in Las Cruces by 2 PM mountain time.

I didn't like the looks of the commercial camp grounds here in town, so we are on the West edge of the city in the KOA. It is more expensive, but with the wind blowing 30 to 50 and dirt flying so that the air is a dust haze, this place became a refuge so to speak.

We sat in the trailer for the rest of the afternoon, only looking out and taking the dog for her potty walks, and so forth.

As the wind dyed down after sunset, we went to the little town of Mesilla that is West of the interstate. We found a authentic Mexican restaurant that we like two years ago, when we were here and had to go back.

La Posta is in an adobe building that has 18 inch thick walls. The roof is made of corrugated metal over the old tree branches that go across the Adobe. It is more than just authentic, it is historic. It has been repaired over the years, but is a cantina from the 19th century.

Mesilla was a Mexican village (pueblo) before it became part of the United States. The streets are all named Calle de what ever. They are so narrow that cars must only go one way, and are mostly parked in vacant lots.

Billy the Kid was tried and hung in a corner saloon, that also doubled as the territorial court house for New Mexico and Arizona. The history drips out of this place. There are no street lights to speak of, so after dark pictures were not to be had.

We will more than likely go West again tomorrow, but we have not set a goal. It almost three hundred miles to Tucson, and if the wind is still as strong, we won't make it that far.

Roswell, New Mexico

We are now in Roswell, Nm. We drove 220 miles today, during one of the highest wind storms we have traveled in. The wind came from the Southwest, and that is the direction that the road takes.

There were gusts up to 40miles per hour, and we stopped in Clovis for about an hour to let some of the worst part of the day pass. Shopping at Wal Mart and sitting out in the parking lot, eating lunch passed the down time.

We had 81 degrees during the late afternoon. Thats not too bad considering it is November 4th.

When we arrived at Roswell, we went directly to this RV park. It is small and not overly nice. I think there are only 15 sites in a horse shoe around the back of the office. We are on one, of two pull thrus. It is unusual, as it has a gate on the front of the site that faces the Highway. To leave, we only need open the gate and pull directly out onto the road.

The wifi here is slow and not able to keep up with the camp during times that every one is on. Lowell from Des Moines called, but we were not able to make a reliable connection to actually talk to each other.

We watched the election returns tonight, but since we have no knowledge about New Mexico politics, it didn't mean too much, except for the national races. Now that the country has its favorite president, I am hopeful that the Markets will settle down and make some sense. Time will be the final measurement on that one.

Oh, and we didn't see any aliens here, except for the plastic blow up kind at the novelty shops in the downtown area. Since the UFO happened in 1947, it would seem that they have about all the mileage they can get out of that one.

We plan on driving down to Las Cruces in the morning. That goes thru the white sands missile base, but you can't see anything from the road. Except the really tall fence. Lol.

I hope the wind lets down some for tomorrow, but when it does, it is supposed to get down to freezing even this far South. That should be fun in our summer insulated trailer.

Retired Rod