What do you want on your tombstone?

Recently I took a much needed vacation to Arizona. I have a friend who lives in Phoenix and decided to go visit. We drove down to southern Arizona and spent some time in Tombstone and Tucson. I had such a fabulous time, it was sad to fly back home so soon.

The vacation began on Sept. 4th. I flew into the Phoenix airport and we went to eat at a local Mexican restaurant called Frank & Lupe's. I ordered the enchiladas with mole sauce. It was a party in my mouth. Delicious! The bonus feature was the fact that our meal came with sopapillas. We drenched them in honey. After dinner we wandered around some local shops there in Scottsdale. Unfortunately, though it was still fairly early (before eight) most of the shops were already closed for the day. I'm not used to being in a place where the tourist season is during the winter which is when, I suppose, the shops would be open later.

The next morning we got up bright and early and drove down to Tombstone to make it to our jeep tour. The tour was awesome. Our tour guide's name was Mark and instead of being 3 1/2 hrs it ended up being around 6! He was so chill and full of lots of interesting information. He told us we could spend as much time as we wanted because he didn't have any other commitments for the day. Our first stop was at a rattlesnake craft shop in the middle of the desert. Mostly it was a junkyard museum for stuff that this couple who lives there has collected over the years. They started making souvenirs out of rattlesnake skin and it became a gift shop. We also met a couple of friendly horses that were all too pleased to come say hi. I found it interesting that they were just roaming free with no fence to keep them in.

On the jeep tour we visited three different ghost towns: Gleeson, Cortland & Pearce. Most towns in Cochise County were begun as mining towns but were abandoned as all the mines eventually flooded. I was surprised to find out that though it is a desert, the water table in the area is really high so it didn't take long before mining was no longer an option because it is too expensive to pump the water out. At its peak, Tombstone had over 20,000 people living there and I believe the only reason people still live there is because it was immortalized by the historic shootout at the OK Corral. We also learned about Cochise & the Apache Indians, Geronimo, the cowboys, miners & the interactions between all these groups. It made for some interesting history as the different cultures didn't always get along.

After our tour we wandered around Allen Street in Tombstone.

We happened to come on a weekend where there was a special event going on so there were extra costumes and gunfights. We were able to see some historic gun reenactments, a costume parade and several fascinating gift shops. The locals were also genuinely nice and very helpful.

We also saw the world's largest rose bush. and a really awesome reptile exhibit.

The next day we visited Kartchner caverns. It was discovered on private property in the 1970's. Since its discovery it has been pretty well preserved and as a result it remains fairly well intact. You can still see the tracks through the mud of the original discoverers. We got to see some really amazing cave formations like cave bacon, soda straw stalactites and helactites. They were having a lighting problem so we were able to see a lot more than normal tours. The lights remained on instead of just illuminating while we passed through each area. We got to see a really good view of a calcite formation called Kubla Khan. Usually tours only get to see the back side and we got to see the whole thing which was amazing.

For our last night we drove up to Tucson and stayed in the Westward Look Resort.

We got a really good deal and only had to pay like a third of the normal price. It was so plush and we decided that next time we will have to plan a longer stay at the resort. The next morning we splurged and got massages. It was nice to be pampered. I was able to see some fun things just at the resort. Just walking between our room, the pool & spa I saw three different lizards. I also saw a small albino gecko on the wall in our bathroom. We wandered through the gardens and I got to see an orange tree, lemon tree & grapefruit tree. Not that amazing but I've never seen them before.

On our way back to Phoenix we stopped at a place called the Nut house. We bought some tasty treats for the road. We are already making out list for our next trip. I purchased a book about the haunted places in Tombstone so now after having read it, we want to go visit them. Maybe we'd just hop on one of the ghost tours. We also want to go back to the reptile exhibit because he now has a Gila monster permit and would probably have an animal by then. Tucson has a really cool desert museum and there's another town called Bisbee that has a really interesting mining history as well. We may also go horseback riding and visit the Triple "T" Ranch.