Tombstone & Gunfight at OK Corral

Wednesday 25th

Today we are going to Tombstone, famous for the Gunfight at the OK Corral.  It is about an hour and a quarter's drive away.
We took a leisurely drive to Tombstone passing through Benson and St. David and arrived about 11 o'clock.  It looked deserted so we parked, the parking was free.  We walked toward the OK Corral and arrived at Allen Street, the main street which is now closed to traffic.  Aah, ha this is where everyone was at, although still relatively quiet.  We found out that the next gunfight at the corral would be at noon, so we walked down the street.  There were people dressed in costume walking the streets and stagecoaches driving along the streets.

The stagecoaches were great but I was a little amused by the Frozen Yoghurt store , don't think they were around in the 1800's!!  Maybe I'm wrong.

Apart from the frozen yoghurt store it seemed quite authentic, although there were lots of gift shops in the old buildings, the type that are quite interesting to browse around.

We decided we would watch the gunfight and then look around the stores.  We bought our tickets for the gunfight.  These were $10 each but included the gunfight, museum, Historama , Epitaph newspaper museum including a free paper compiled of news from October 1881.  We also got a 2 for 1 with our Tucson attractions passport!!!  It was very good value.  We looked around the OK Corral museum, which included original buildings and a working blacksmith before getting seated for the show.

  Click here for video of the major gunfight part of the show.

After the show, we went and watched Historama, a presentation made in the 30's about the history of Tombstone and narrated by Vincent Price and surprisingly good for the time.

Bryan wanted to take a picture of me by this hearse.

At least Bryan didn't ask me to lie down beside it to see if I would fit!!!

We walked back down Allen Street, looking all around the gift shops.

We went to the Epitaph Newspaper Museum and looked around and picked up our free newspapers.  I noticed that after Geronimo surrendered in Arizona he was sent to Fort Pickens, Pensacola for a while.

We looked inside the Bird Cage Theatre back on Allen Street.

There are bullet holes still in the bar

 There was a gentleman in there telling you a little history of the site and pointing out some of the bullet holes that are still there.  We didn't pay for the tour of the whole building but have been told that it is very good.

We had decided to eat lunch/dinner here and I had picked out Cafe Magarita, a mexican restaurant that had good reviews, however we found out it was closed on Wednesdays and Thursdays so we had to find an alternative.  Option B turned out to be the Crystal Palace Saloon, where we had a drink and Bryan had Chili and a BBQ Pork Sandwich and I had a Bacon, Lettuce & Tomato sandwich. Bryan said the chili was really good and the fries were also excellent.  We were a little disappointed at missing out on the mexican food we had been anticipating though!!  While we were there, characters from the Gunfight at the OK Corral show, Doc Holliday and Big Nose Kate came in and joined a couple of the Earp brothers for a drink at the bar.  If you look very closely you can see the Earp brothers in the background of the picture of Bryan below.

After our meal we took a slow walk back to the car park and drove to Boothill Graveyard where the dead from the shootout at the OK Corral are buried.

Click Here for more pictures from today

Thursday 26th

Today is our 22nd wedding anniversary.  We got married in a castle chapel near Edinburgh, Scotland.  The castle had been converted into a hotel but still had a lot of the original rooms.  It was a fantastic day and one we will always remember. 

Don't we look young!!!

We stayed around the house today.  Bryan's right ear was hurting again and we think it may be an allergy to the cemetery yesterday as we were looking amongst the brush for a "Stewart" grave, only to find out it was one of the "Unknown" marked graves.  We got my prescriptions refilled at the pharmacy and went for dinner at Joe's Crab Shack.  

Brenda, Bryan's daughter, called to let us know there were vacancies at the Kingsville NAS RV Park and so we called and booked two weeks there from October 24th until November 7th.  We are really excited to see them again especially the girls, LeeAnn & Aimee.  LeeAnn will be participating in the Special Olympics while we are there and Aimee has two soccer games.  Yay!!!!

The nurse at the doctors Bryan went to last week called as a follow up to see how he was doing.  When he told her, she told him he could go back in if he felt he needed to.  He had tried to see if there is an ENT doctor on the base but there isn't, so he will see how he is in the morning and then may go back to get some meds to last until we can get him to an ENT.  

Friday 27th

Bryan got up and went back to the doctor this morning.  She gave him more meds to last until we can get to an ENT doctor.  He managed to get some sleep last night but we decided to stay in today instead of going to Kartchner Caverns as we had planned.  His ears are clearing up again with the help of the meds and so we will see what happens.  If it is allergies they may be ok as we drive east.  Our GPS still hasn't arrived and so we will stay here until Tuesday and hope it arrives Monday.  We changed our appointment with Camping World from Monday to Tuesday when we will get new house batteries installed. We spent a quiet day in again and I seem to have been writing this blog for most of it as I had a problem uploading the video from the gunfight but got there in the end.

Hope everyone has a great weekend, especially those who are still working!! 

Sunset & Colossal Cave Mountain Park

Thursday 19th, Friday 20th, Saturday 21st & Sunday 22nd

We took it easy on Thursday and gave Bryan's meds a chance to kick in which seemed to work. We got a note from the campground host that the toilet block nearest to us was being closed from next Monday for renovations.  This meant that there could be times when the water has to be turned off and so Bryan put water in the tank so we had a reserve. We were also waiting for our mail to arrive from the mail forwarding service but there was no sign of it.
The plan was to go to the caves on Friday but when I woke up I didn't feel 100%, nothing major but didn't feel like climbing 300+ steps in the caves so we decided to stay home and went food shopping instead, ugh!!!  Wish I had felt 100% but at least it got the shopping out of the way.  The mail still didn't show and I called the post office who said it would be delivered tomorrow.  Unfortunately, the office here is closed at the weekends and so we will have to wait until Monday.
Saturday & Sunday we spent watching movies and sports.  It has been ages since we watched any movies so it was good to just relax.  We both seem to struggle with just relaxing, it seems we always have to be doing something.  After the movies, CoCo decided she wanted the whole couch and so Bryan sat on the floor for a while.  

Guess who is the boss in our house!!!!

There was a great sunset on Saturday and when I took CoCo for her walk I took some pics.

Sun setting behind Lily & Tilly

CoCo enjoying the dog park with the sunset in the rear

The sun was setting on the west of the campground and to the east there was a partial rainbow showing through the rain clouds, although the rain didn't reach us.

Sunday was Christina's (Ryan's girlfriend) birthday and so Happy Birthday to Christina and hope you are feeling better.

Monday 23rd

Our mail arrived this morning and lo and behold NO Rand McNally GPS, or "Bitchin Betty" as Bryan fondly refers to her, was in the package.  This is the second unit we have had to return to Rand McNally for different problems and they have twice sent us a new unit.  The second one was mailed out to our Florida address on September 2nd and so we were expecting it to be part of this shipment to us. Bryan called Rand McNally who confirmed the shipment and gave us the name of the person who signed for it in Florida.  I called the mail forwarding service and they looked for it and found it, apologized for not sending it and told me they would get it in the mail today.  Makes you wonder sometimes, doesn't it!!!!
We had decided to go to Colossal Cave Mountain Park today, which is where we were going to go last Friday until I bailed out.  Caves are definitely my thing, have always been fascinated by them, I'm not sure why.
On the way we saw a baby Black Angus cow on the road, it scurried off to meet it's mother hopefully.  There were signs to tell you to drive carefully because of cattle and deer.
At Colossal Caves, the gardens, gift shop and walkways around and through the caves were constructed in the 1930's by the Civilian Conservation Corp and they were very well done. It was beautiful.

Map of the park

We signed up for a tour of the caves and looked around the gift shop while we waited.  Our time arrived and the guide took us into the caves.

 There was a lady with two children and when we went to go in the caves the youngest one was terrified.  As much as his mother tried to persuade him it was safe he was having none of it and so our tour with 7 people became 4.
The tour was excellent, and the caves are very well maintained.  This is the largest dry cavern in the world.  The pathways that the corp constructed over 80 years ago are still being used and there is a very natural feel to the whole thing.  It does not seem too commercialized like some, and is relatively easy to get through.  Yes, you go down over 300 steps, some narrow and the descent is the equivalent of six and a half stories high. Of course what you go down you then have to come back up, however the return route is different so you are not completely retracing your steps.  I was a little concerned we wouldn't be able to do it with our knees but we made it and I found it relatively easy.  The temperature down there is a constant 70 degrees but it has 90% humidity and you could certainly feel the humidity. One of the many things the guide told us was about the Bandit Legend of Colossal Cave and he showed us how the robbers had escaped through a back exit to the cave. You can read the full story HERE.  There have been movies made here, they have weddings here, and also use the caves for underground rescue teams to train in.  Believe me I have been in numerous caves in the Uk and the USA and these were the best ones so far.

What is thought to be the way out for the bandit robbers in the 1800's

At the top of the steps is The Alter where they occasionally hold weddings

After the tour we drove through the rest of the park.  There's a museum in the old ranch house, butterfly garden and tortoise habitats as well.  The young man in the museum was very nice and asked us if we were from Tucson.  Bryan explained that we lived in our motorhome fulltime and were traveling through the States. This always gets us into interesting conversations and this time was no exception.  He was one of the ones who have said they would like to do that eventually.  Some, understandably, look at us as though we are mad!!!

Stained Glass Door

Butterflies

Desert Tortoise, hiding in the heat

Horse rides, the horses were saddled up and ready, and a very small petting zoo are also there, although we weren't impressed by either of these and it seemed cruel to have these animals standing out in the heat, especially as there weren't many people around.  We were the only two who were there at the time.

We headed back home after an interesting day out.

Tuesday 24th

Well, HAPPY HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my lovely Mum today.  She is 84 years young and doing very well for her age.  Of course I gave her a call to sing Happy Birthday to her.  I know I am tone deaf, and so the people I sing to are few and far between, as I don't want to make everyone endure that ordeal.  Mum being Mum puts up with it!!!
We went out to the base pharmacy to renew our prescriptions. It will take 3 days to get them transferred from Nellis AFB in Las Vegas and it seems that we will have to keep transferring them every time we head to a new base. It is a bit of a pain but worth it I think to get the free prescriptions every three months.  Every little counts in our budget!!!

Well, that's it for now.  Tomorrow we may head to Tombstone and the Gunfight at the OK Corral for the day.

Pima Air Museum & "Boneyard"

Tuesday 17th

Bryan has been suffering with his ears again and so we didn't do much on Sunday & Monday but decided to go to Pima Air Museum today.  First of all we went to Tucson Visitor Centre to get a Tucson Passport which gives two for one admissions and other deals on local attractions. It was located in a quaint building in the centre of Tucson.

 We arrived at the museum and got our 2 for 1 admission.  There were not many people here and so it was nice going around virtually alone. I got pictures of the flying bomb that Germany used on the UK during World War II.

My mum has talked about these, and how when they were in the air raid shelter in my grandparents garden they would hear these coming over, and hope the noise didn't stop as they were overhead, as that meant it was going to drop.  The hole where the air raid shelter had been was made into a pond after the war and my brother and I would fish for newts in it.
We covered about two thirds of the museum before it was time for us to catch the bus for the "Boneyard" .  This was the tour to the area at Davis Monthan Air Base, where planes are put in storage until it is decided what to do with them, scrap, regenerate etc.etc.   Bryan was really looking forward to the tour.  There are a LOT of planes here and the tour was very informative for me.  I think Bryan knew most of what the guide was telling us.  Unfortunately they were no F-111's which was the plane Bryan worked on when he was at Upper Heyford.  The last one had been scrapped a couple of weeks earlier.  We got back to the museum and finished looking around the rest of the exhibits.  We searched and searched for the F-111 that was supposed to be on display here but couldn't find it.  We decided to eat at the cafe and sat and cooled off in the restaurant.  Bryan asked one of the docents about the F-111 and they looked up where it was and told him.  We went out into the heat again, to find it.  Nope, there was no sign, just an empty space where it should have been.  So, who knows where it has gone??  We will keep looking online to see if we can find out what happened to it.
We had a really nice day, wandering around the museum and going on the bus tour to see all the old planes.
When we got back to Lily I took this picture of the sun setting behind the motorhome.  Sorry it's a little blurred.

Click here for more pictures from today

Wednesday 18th

Bryan went to the doctor today as his ears are not getting any better.  They gave him a prescription and we are hoping it will work.  We took it easy today.  We will see what tomorrow brings.

The blog reached 750 views today.  Thanks to everyone for following along.

Friday 13th - Mt. Lemmon Scenic Byway

Friday 13th

Firstly, Happy Birthday to Kris, Ian's partner.  Hope you have a great day at home in Wales.
Ok, we decided that Friday 13th would be the day we would see if there were any bugs in the house!!!!    
I have been getting bitten by something and I'm not sure what it is but could be fleas, ugh!!!  Co-Co has had a flea collar on but maybe it hasn't worked or maybe my bites are something else.  They are not bad but I want to get rid of whatever is causing them.  So far, we haven't seen anything or any evidence of anything which is kind of strange. We decided to get a bug bomb and let it off in the house.  Of course this meant we had to go out for at least two hours with CoCo.  It has been a little hot to go walking for that time here so I looked for a road trip we could take.

I found the Mt.Lemmon Scenic Byway, so we put things away, covered things up, packed a lunch, food & water for CoCo and set off the bug bomb and left.  We made sure to tell the camp host what we had done in case anyone saw smoke or smelt anything funny and were concerned.

It wasn't long before we were on the scenic roadway.  I was amazed how the terrain changed for one minute to the next on this trip.  Of course we were getting higher and higher in the mountains which was the reason for the different vegetation but the weather also kept changing as we rounded bend after bend.  Bob Bowers describes it far better than I ever could here.
We started at 3,000 ft above sea level and climbed to 9,000 ft above sea level. We started with Saguaro Cactus, yes Ryan I know how much you love cactus.

You can see Tucson in the background

 When Ryan was young and we were visiting a garden center he thought it would be a good idea to hug a cactus.  Of course he was too quick for us to stop him totally and got some needles in his fingers, which we had to pull out one by one.  We felt terrible for him and I think the incident was nearly as painful for us as it was for him.  Obviously, this has led him to have a dislike for cactus, and I am reminded of the incident whenever we see cactus, which is quite often when you live in the desert.
Back to the roadtrip -
We saw oak trees, pine trees and some amazing rock formations.

What different shapes or faces can you see in these pictures??

As you can see the skies were blue but as we ascended the mountain there were some dark clouds looming.

 I got a little worried that we would have a torrential downpour but as quickly as they were there you rounded the next bend and they were gone only to return a few bends later.  It was very strange and beautiful.
We stopped at one of the parking areas and got out so we could all stretch our legs.

We reached the little village near the top of the mountain and the road came to a dead end, so we turned around to begin our return trip.  There was a restaurant, post office, fire station and couple of other buildings here but we didn't stop to look at any of them.  We passed the turning for the ski area and continued on our way down as we were ready for our lunch and we had decided we would stop at one of the picnic areas on the way down.  The temperature had dropped 30 degrees from when we started the beginning of the drive to the top and it was a chilly 60 degrees which was why we decided to go back down the mountain to find our lunch spot.

We found Rose Canyon Lake.  We parked and walked down to the lake. 

We found a log to sit on and eat our lunch.  It was very peaceful even though there were school groups and anglers there enjoying the nature.  There were also signs warning about the bears.  As this is a tent campground as well, it was telling you to keep your food in the bins that are provided.  Didn't realize that there were bears in Arizona but thankfully didn't see any evidence of them.  They obviously weren't enticed by our sandwiches. Thank goodness!!!

After our break and walk we headed on back down the road. 

The scenery was fabulous... 

We arrived back in Tucson and headed home.  When we got back we opened all the windows and doors to air Lily out.  We put the rugs outside to air and Bryan took the bedding, blankets and towels to the laundry to get them washed.  I cleaned and vacuumed the floors.  We left the rugs outside for a while to air.  I didn't see any dead bugs so who knows, we will see if I get any more bites.

We had a wonderful day out and as they say, traveling the Catalina Highway is like driving from Mexico to Canada in a couple of hours.

Here is the the link of all the photos I took today.

Saturday 14th

Well, I didn't get bitten yet. Let's hope that lasts.  

Bryan bowled in a tournament today at the bowling alley on base.  It was the first time since his knee surgery that he has bowled apart from the quick practice session on Thursday.  Here are his words on the event:   Bowled in a elimination tourney here at Davis Monthan AFB. Thought I really did not have a chance since there was quite a few really good bowlers and the fact that I was the oldest one entered. Surprised my self and started the qualifier off with a 254, 218, 197 and 204 to qualify third out of 15. Still around to finish 2nd, missed wining the tourney by three pins. Doubled my entry money. Happy Camper. 

While he was gone I decided to watch the recording of Andy Murray winning Wimbledon, that Bryan kindly recorded for me while I was in England.  It was the first time I had seen it fully since it happened. I had watched it in England but as I was enjoying my first day with Ian and the grandkids I didn't pay as much attention to it as I would have done.  It was very enjoyable watching it when I knew the outcome, as parts of it were nailbiting first time around.  It finished about the same time as Bryan finished his tournament and so the timing worked out well.  

Well, that's about it for now.....  Take Care.

On the road again and in Tucson, Arizona

Sunday 8th

We didn't do much today.  Bryan got some new wiper blades and put them on as the forecast is rain and the ones we have at the moment smear the windows a bit. we got as ready as we could to get on the road tomorrow.  Sorry, I forgot to get any pictures of this campground.

Monday 9th

Fortunately, we did as much as we could to get ready to leave yesterday as it was raining quite hard.  It was the first time we had been on the road in heavy rain but fortunately it didn't last long.  The rain stopped and the rest of the journey was good. The windscreen wiper that Bryan and Ryan fixed worked well and they didn't smear thanks to the new blades.
We arrived at Agave Gulch Famcamp at Davis Monthan Air Base in good time and will be here until the 30th.  We are both pleased to be in one place for a while.  There seems to be a lot to do here but it is still hot so ideally it would probably be better to get here a little later in the year or earlier before summer.
When we hooked up to the electric at the site we were not getting full power.  At first we thought it was related to our previous problems but when we looked at the surge protector that we use to plug in to the post at the campground it showed we were only getting 30 amps and not 50.  We called the office and they sent a maintenance guy out to check the wiring.  Sure enough there was a broken/loose wire, they fixed it and we were ok once again.  It was frustrating though when initially we thought there was something wrong with our wiring again.
I put the satellite up as I wanted to watch the US Open tennis final even though Andy wasn't playing.  I expected a good match between Nadal and Djokovic.  Well, we found out that we couldn't get the Las Vegas channels anymore as we were to far away from Vegas.  We thought that by calling Direct TV they would change our service address and that would fix the problem.  Apparently rules have changed and we have to apply for a waiver to get local feeds from either the East or West coast according to where we are.  This takes a couple of weeks, so there was no tennis for me.  We really felt as though things keep going wrong although again it's really nothing drastic which we are thankful for.

A rainbow taken from our campsite

We setup our patio as we will be here a while.

Tuesday 10th

Just after we went to bed last night it started to rain really heavily and we had thunder and lightening.  It was raining so hard that Bryan got up and checked the ceiling throughout Lily and in the cabinets to make sure nothing was leaking.  Everything was fine, thank goodness.  Of course, CoCo was a nervous wreck as she always is when there is thunder or fireworks!!  She ended up on the bed with us and eventually we all went to sleep.
Today is Bryan's Dads birthday and so we remembered him and how he called me LuLu.
We went for a drive around the base and to the exchange where we bought an indoor TV antenna to see if we could get local channels with that.  When we got back we hooked the antenna up and it worked so we decided to use that for a while.  We may not get signals wherever we go but it will do until we get Lily registered in Florida in December and then maybe we will apply for the waiver, although it will cost an extra $15 month to get locals from Direct TV so if the antenna works well we may just decide to keep it.
When I went to put laundry away today I discovered that the rail in my closet had collapsed!!!  I know I have too many clothes!!!!  Something else for Bryan to fix, ugh.....

Wednesday 11th

We went to Home Depot to get some wood to fix my closet and Bryan fixed it when we got home.  I can now hang my clothes up again.  He put a stronger, thicker piece of wood up in the roof of the closet for the rail to attach to.  I took some of my clothes out and hopefully this time it will last.
My laptop has been getting slower and slower and so I decided to restore it back to its original factory settings.  I saved everything I needed to a hard drive and wiped my computer clean.  Of course it took some time to update everything and load the things I needed back on and I will continue tomorrow.

Thursday 12th

I finished restoring my laptop and it is working again.  There is a bowling tournament on base on Saturday and Bryan wanted to try and bowl a couple of games to decide whether he will enter or not.  He has not bowled since his knee surgery in June and so he wasn't sure how his knee would do.  He got 5 strikes straight off.  At the end of two games, he bowled well but his ankle was hurting a little.  He had hurt his ankle while out walking CoCo in Pahrump so I guess it aggravated that.  He is still deciding whether to bowl in the tournament or not but I think he probably will.

Going to bed now, so good night.  Sweet Dreams to everyone.......