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!!