Tombstone

Saturday, 15 December

After two days of golf, today was about sightseeing in the town of Tombstone.  Our research indicated that it was a touristy town.  There were no less than a dozen gunfights by at least four different establishments every day.  Still, we wanted to add Tombstone to our collection of experiences.

We took the free shuttle provided by the RV park to town at 9am, all of about 1.7 miles away.  We arrived before many of the shops opened at 10am, so we wandered the town to take stock of what we wanted to do.  

Photo of Main Street:

We decided to start at the O.K. Corral, and got tickets for the 11am gunfight show.  We took in the Historama, a 25-minute multimedia history of Tombstone narrated by Vincent Price.

The gunfight show at the O.K Corral was a show.  Less time invested than watching the movie Tombstone with Kurt Russell.  After experiencing that show, we decided not to take in any of the other shows.

We had lunch at “Big Nose” Kate’s Saloon.  There were a lot of people in the Saloon in period clothes making us think that the actors in the various shows also ate there.

We wandered in and out of the shops which seemed to sell mostly western wear or tourist trinkets, which was hard to interest us living in 90 square feet.  We visited The Tombstone Epitaph, the local newspaper in the day.  They had printing equipment on display as well as explanations of how newspaper was printed in the 1880s.  The founder of the newspaper called the paper “The Tombstone Epitaph” because every tombstone needed an epitaph.  At least that’s what the displays said.

Photo of the actual town hall used today:

Tombstone had few visitors today, a lot less than we expected for a Saturday.  In talking with some shopkeepers, they told us that attendance was less than usual, in part because of the chilly temperatures.  They said it was cooler than normal for December.  As we wandered the town, many people in period attire would point to some establishment they were connected with - a bakery, a restaurant, a show - to try and entice us to visit/support.

Being a cool day, we decided to walk the 1.7 miles back to the RV park to get some exercise for the day.

As we were checking in at the RV Park last night, one of the camp hosts in the office said you could not do all of Tombstone in a day.  Probably true, if you tried to do every gunfight show, every walking tour, a stagecoach ride, a trolley ride, etc.  We felt we had visited Tombstone sufficiently for our interests by 1:30, especially as it was a cloudy, chilly day.

We spent a quiet afternoon at the RV park watching football while we did a load of laundry.