Our first visit of the day on our way to Tucson was Tombstone. Our general impression of Tombstone is definitely 'commercialized'. We did go for a ride on an authentic stage coach:
It is hard to believe that people travelled thousands of miles in these things (very cramped).
The state park tourist house was very interesting. It was the original site of the courthouse, the one where Wyatt Earp and gang were tried, and acquitted, of the murder of the Clantons. From reading the stories, and looking at the re-enactment scenes based on eye-witness accounts, it did appear a bit like an ambush of the Democratic Clanton's by the Republican Earp's (and Doc Holliday). Not really sure there was much political motivation, though. More like a cleaning house type scene. As it turned out, the battle lasted a quick 30 seconds. Here is the site of the battle (obviously, it does not look the same today .. can you spot the differences?):
The trial and possible hanging site were located in the courthouse building (and the adjoining yard .. after conviction they could be hanged within a couple of minutes if need be). Fortunately, for them they only visited the left-hand spot on this day:
Note: It is only coincidental that the two boys are posing in these shots.
We did have fun, though, and spent quite a while at the state parks tourist house where they had a great variety of vintage items and stories of the area. We even got a chance to go on an authentic (or at least it sure seemed that it was .. yuck) stage coach ride around town. It is hard to imagine that they actually went thousands of miles in these things.
When we arrived at our next night-time destination, the Cactus Country RV Resort we knew we had found a place we could stay for some time. We weren't sure how long we were going to stay, however, we decided on three nights. It was warmer in Tucson for one thing (Willcox got down to 31 degrees on our first night), and the facilities here were quite exceptional: heated pool, rec hall (with TV/VCR), store, laundry, modem hookup, two pool tables, shuffleboard, and activities. This was our priciest spot of all, however, it was also probably the 'nicest' from a facilities point of view. Though it would not compete with some of the views we have had in state parks, the view here was quite nice. We were even able to be entertained by marauding coyotes and javelinas at night (we could hear them only a hundred yards away!). Here is the sunset on our first night (and believe it or not this is actually just within the Tucson city limits!):
After our first night, we chose to spend our first whole day very laid back. We visited with people across the way from us (a very nice couple from Michigan (again .. remember the people in Las Cruces?)). The weather was warm. We signed up for the 'end-of-season' pizza dinner and joined with a number of other people (about 40) most of whom had spent the winter here. After dinner, all but Pam decided to hop in the car to go into Tucson to find the closest Blockbuster video that rented DVDs. We were able to find one that worked on the computer / DVD player after going through seven different DVDs. (There must be something wrong!) We went back to the campsite and watched our DVD, First Contact (we had all seen it, but enjoyed it nevertheless).
The next day we decided we would go to the Sonora Desert Museum and the Saguaro National Park (pronounce SU-HAR-O). We did not get a quick jump to the day, so we left just after lunch. When we got there, we decided to go to the national park first. We enjoyed greatly viewing the Saguaro cactus (native to the Sonora Desert and in fact, the only place in the world they grow). We listened to a couple of talks, saw a brief video, and did some touring of the grounds there. We also did an eight mile loop trail (dirt road) and got to wander amongst these magnificent cacti:
Because time was getting fairly late (about 15:30) and we had been to the Living Desert at Carlsbad (a smaller version of this museum), and after some talk about going to see a real 'movie' (not just a DVD but at a theater) we chose to head back in to Tucson and go to a movie. Unfortunately, we were not able to find a theatre with a movie we liked so we just returned our DVD rented the previous night and picked up an AAA Tour Book (of Arizona) and a new 1999 AAA map of North America (our Rand McNally we had been using for the trip is a 1996, so it is quite out-of-date in some spots we discovered).
We had a very windy day and evening .. even to the point we discovered from our neighbours next door when we got back to our site of closing down I-10 just east of Tucson. Heather Lynn got a chance to spend time on ICQ (online chatting to her friends) because Paul and Ruthetta (our new pals from Michigan) had an outside phone line they let her use (for a second night in a row).
In the morning we packed up in very chilly weather (around 50) and foreboding skies. As we departed at 11:00 on our way up to Chandler (just south of Phoenix, where Duncan and Mary Glendinning live) it just started to sprinkle in Tucson. On our drive up to Phoenix we were in the middle of major rains. It was actually very nice for them, since they had not any appreciable rain since December 5, 1998.