Day 03 - Tombstone, AZ

We woke up to a nice, bright and cool day in Tombstone. We were up early enough to arrive at the Longhorn Restaurant just about the time it opened at 7:30 AM. Linda had fruit and John had the Cowboy Breakfast. This breakfast consists of three eggs, bacon, toast and hash browns. John got them to exchange the hashbrowns for some fruit. He also had a large glass of orange juice.

After breakfast, we went back to the motel and got Fannie Mae to bring her with us downtown. Fannie Mae, now 11 months old, likes to bark and growl at people, especially children. We are trying to break her of this so we thought it would be good to bring her with us to downtown Tombstone. We were downtown a bit earlier than we needed to be, and most of the stores weren't yet open. So, we window shopped and walked up and down Allen Street to check out what was going on. Linda shopped in a few stores while John sat on the bench and had Fannie Mae on a leash.  She is just not yet the chick magnet that Maggie Mae was. It is a turnoff when you are approaching a puppy and she growls or barks at you. Amazing how she can be so sweet with us but so protective that she seems unfriendly.

One of John's favorite establishments was Madame Mustache Purveyor of Pleasure and Things to Tickle Your Fancy. At least that's what the sign on her building says.

One of Tombstone's deputy marshals was walking around town with his rifle and making sure the tourists were not illegal immigrants. Actually, he was hitting on one of the women who was visiting Tombstone.

Starting at about 9:00 AM there is a Wells Fargo stagecoach that goes back and forth along Allen Street, the main drag through Tombstone. You can pay to ride it if you are so inclined. You will find several photos in today's photo gallery of the Wells Fargo stagecoach.

Businesses on both sides of Allen Street have boardwalks in front of them and and the boardwalks are covered. This provides some nice shade.

Linda visited the Bird Cage Theater. The original Bird Cage Theater was "erected" in 1881. It was the employer of many a working girl, but was also a first class and successful variety theater bringing professional artists and performers to Tombstone. The Bird Cages can still be seen and were the venue for prostitutes to "entertain" their clients.  It has been described it as notorious, bawdy and wicked. It is said that no respectable lady would set foot in the Bird Cage and that troupes performing in Tombstone had to perform at the Schieffelin Theater for the respectable citizens to attend,  The Bird Cage had different names over the years, including the Elite and the Olympic,  It closed as a theater in 1892.  It has been a museum over the years and is the original 1881 building.  It includes a horse-drawn hearse and a basement.

Big Nose Kate was purported to be Doc Holliday's girlfriend. If you see an actual photograph of Big Nose Kate you'll see she's not a comely woman at all. One of Kate's workers who lived in the basement of her saloon had tunneled underground to some silver mines in Tombstone. He supposedly took a great deal of silver from those mines. At Big Kate's Saloon you can descend into the shaft and see how much was dug out by the worker in his spare time (to try to find a silver motherload).  Nowadays, you can hunt for hidden treasure there or buy a t-shirt.

Linda's sister will be glad to know that Mary Kay is alive and well in Tombstone. However, it looks like the resurrected Elvis is the Mary Kay consultant here. See the photo gallery.

We had lunch at guess where? The Longhorn Restaurant again. We both had their Cobb salad. It was very nice and their salad bowls are deceptive. The bowl doesn't look like it holds that much, but there was a lot of salad there. Obviously, Fannie Mae was not able to join us for lunch.

After lunch we visited the Boot Hill Graveyard. We have lots of pictures of interesting graves in our photo gallery. If you've ever heard the old saw "Here lies Lester Moore, Four slugs from a .44, No Less, No More", it actually does comes from his gravesite in Boot Hill and there is a photo of his grave in today's photo gallery.

John had received an e-mail message through his cell phone that a package he had ordered from Amazon to be delivered to Kathy and Vernon's home was not deliverable because no one was home at the time the post office attempted to deliver it. John needed to reschedule delivery at the US Post Office website. He really needed Internet access and found it at the Tombstone Library. Fortunately, he was able to use their Internet access long enough to reschedule delivery of the package to Kathy and Vernon's. And, yes, it did show up. By the way, the Tombstone Library is in the old railroad depot. It's very cute.

Would you like to guess where we ate dinner this evening? You are correct! We had dinner at the Longhorn Restaurant. Linda had a Cactus Margarita and a bowl of black bean soup. She was trying to save room for one of their signature desserts – Death by Chocolate.  Alas, the bean soup was really hearty and there was no room. John ordered a patty melt and requested that they put gravy on it and serve it openface. This was his way of getting something close to a hamburger steak, which is really what he wanted.

After dinner, we loaded our belongings into Wilma, keeping only those things we needed for the evening and early the next morning. With full tummies we went to bed for a good night's rest.

For a visit to Tombstone via our photo gallery, click here.