Sunday, August 5, 2012

The Town Too Tough to Die










The morning my friend Jana and I left for our epic road trip, I was ecstatic. I decided not to get all mopey about telling Adam goodbye for two months. Instead, I just decided to concentrate on the adventure that a cross country road trip would surely bring! About ten minutes in, we were blasting the great American Road trip play list I had made, and I swear we sang for 8 hours straight, and rarely was it on key.

It only took us a couple of hours to leave California in the dust and cross into Arizona. Right before we crossed the state line, we stopped at a gas station to stock up on goods, most importantly Arizona Tea, because I really wanted to be drinking an Arizona in Arizona! Yes, I'm a dweeb. We stopped right at the border to take a picture with the state sign. Although I don't know if that was such a bright idea, because about the time we were snapping the pictures, we heard some rattling noises coming from the bushes. I'm not saying it was a rattlesnake, but I'm not saying it wasn't a rattlesnake. We definitely hurried our butts back into the car. But it is not like we learned our lesson because we continued to stop at every state sign for the rest of the trip.

After weaving our way through Phoenix and Tuscon, we finally arrived at our first destination Tombstone, Arizona! I have wanted to go to The Town too Tough to Die forever. We stayed in these cute, little log cabins a few blocks from all the action. The cabin was fun because periodically a stage couch driven by people dressed in Western time period style clothing would drive right by our cabin! Plus, it had a tiny kitchen, a tiny downstairs bedroom, and an upstairs loft. I slept in the loft and managed not to kill myself, although I haven't slept walk in years, I was having nightmares about sleepwalking to my death!

After settling in, we walked to the main part of town, which looks just like what you would imagine an old, Western town would look like. Historic Tombstone has little squat buildings which have a dusty, worn feel to them. We moseyed (yes, moseyed because that is what you do in Tombstone) past the famous landmarks like the O.K. Corral, Big Nose Kate's Saloon, and The Birdcage Theatre.

It is important to note at this point of this post that when we were on our way to Tombstone, we sent up a little prayer to the big man upstairs. We prayed that he would send a good looking cowboy to us to occupy our time in Tombstone. Not that we would do anything bad with him, we are both taken by amazing men. But a little dancing sounded like it could be fun. So when we wandered into Big Nose Katie's Saloon, a cowboy immediately approached me. He said, "Are you that beautiful girl, I've seen around here singing that has a voice like an angel?" This comment sounds innocent enough. But it was obvious from his demeanor that he was just flirting with me. Which would have been the answer to our prayer, if this cowboy hadn't been 80. I did my best to pass him off onto Jana, but he was adamant that he only liked blondes. And I even tried to tell him that I certainly didn't have the voice of an angel, but nothing worked. We just ended up escaping out the side door. But you have to admit that God obviously has a sense of humor, we got our cowboy, but we didn't specify his age.

After our run in with the Geriatric cowboy, we took a little guided tour of Tombstone. We learned about all the gunfights and murders, and we even learned that the gunfight at the O.K. Corral didn't actually happened at the O.K. Corral. It happen in the street, about a half a block from the Corral. But when Hollywood wanted to film a movie about Tombstone, it sounded less glamorous to say, "The Gunfight that Happened in the Street a half a block from the O.K. Corral." And changed it to what we all know it as today. Also on our tour, the tour guide pointed out all the haunted locations in town. After the tour, we snapped some pictures in hopes of catching a ghost on film. I don't think we got anything, and truth be told I'm rather glad. I could go my whole life having not seen a ghost,

The last thing we did in Tombstone before heading back to our cozy cabin, was to eat disgustingly, delicious chili cheese burgers at the Longhorn Saloon. They were soooo good, but we really were waddling instead of walking on our way back to the house.

We really had a fun first day on our road trip, but we had so much fun stuff still to come. 

3 comments:

  1. OMG, ♥
    http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Oej2hMUPz-Q/UBdH9RQrRDI/AAAAAAAAEuc/xLPNjI_VP8U/s1600/g.jpg

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  2. lol, geriatric cowboy. That could be a tv show! :-) I would love to take a cross country road trip someday. For now I'll live through you!

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  3. Your roadtrip sounds amazing. i'm in love with dusty arizona and now want to go there someday after not knowing much about it before. love love love anything american old west. great post.

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