This was my one day off for Jason and I to get together, but we knew that we wouldn't be without Mom behind the helm. He's been staying at her house without a rental car, and Mom won't let anyone touch her five vehicles unless she is the driver. That's no problem, but I also knew that she wouldn't want to visit Bisbee as well, a mining town south of Tombstone more to my liking and less of a tourist town.
We met at 11am on Tombstone's main street, which was rather dead without the usual overweight tourists from other parts of the country looking for the Old West. For the first time that I can remember, I walked the main street without cone-licking tourists blockading my view. Tourist season died after Labor Day, explained one local shop owner to me, and won't kick in again until mid October, during the weeklong "Helldorado Days" with more reenacted shoot-outs and other old western stuff. Then the season will go dormant until next spring.
But for me as a local, Tombstone doesn't offer anything new. I've seen all the things. This town makes its business as a touristy, overpriced old western town. "The Town Too Tough To Die" as it is known. Anyone wearing black leather spurs or vests and walking Main Street was anxious to get some tourist bucks for the day.
An elderly gentleman dressed in the town's typical 1880s regalia came up to us three times trying to sell us ticket for a three-mile, fifteen-minute carriage ride around all the town's historical sites.
We perused the main street for an hour, visited shops until noon when the Big Nose Kate Saoon's live entertainment began. That bar is my mother's favorite. It's an old saloon where allegedly Doc Holiday spent his last night with a prostitute before getting gunned down the next day across the street at the OK Coral.
Lunch was pleasant but the crowd was getting large and conversation difficult to sustain without yelling at one another. After lunch of quesadillas and iced tea I went downstairs to the Shaft and actually bought some trimmed jeans for 50% off.
Marcela got into the touristy stuff and had her picture taken with some of the 1880s men walking around just waiting to pose for a few dollars.
Mom was in a hurry to get back to her place --she refuses to drive after dark-- and at first seemed upset that Jason and I had "planned" a trip without her. That wasn't the case. Bisbee was just a suggestion but we knew with Mom around, who doesn't like driving after dark, was out of the question. Bisbee is a walking town and I would have taken the two (three) on the four-mile stair climb around town. That is one thing she no longer can do: walk for any period of time. She'd rather kayak for two hours than walk for two hours. No big deal to me.
We did as she wanted. After a quick tour of the Bird Cage Museum, the only decent authentic building in town. (Even Boothill Cemetery is not in its original spot). There are over 144 bullet holes in the building and the cashier gladly points the main ones out to you in hopes of getting interested in the $10 musuem self-tour.
We drove to Boothill Cemetery afterwards, admired Sheepshead Rock from a distance, toured the stone graves and said our good-byes. I drove back into town to drop off a bag of cans at the animal shelter and stop by the town library.
My vacation is now officially over. I want and need to get back to the office and involve myself in more mental challenges. The garden no longer needs my attention. Tomorrow I will drop off my teaching certificate at three different school districts in the morning. I am now free to make extra money and save it all for a trip back to Indiana for Christmas to see my kids and adore my mother-to-be daughter. Her baby is due 12 May and I only found that out yesterday when she called me while I was in the college library waiting for my class to start.
I have so much to do at home, too. I still haven't unpacked all those boxes in the garage nor gotten my office set up. That's my next plan now that the gardening season is winding down with the monsoon. Our next rain is residual rains from Tropical Storm Lowell due to hit Baja California tonight.
http://www.americanwest.com/pages/tombston.htm
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/5987712.html
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/5992505.html
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