Shootout!

Tuesday we drove down to Tombstone to see the shootout at the OK Corral and any other cowboy stuff there was to see. Cutesy town, thriving on us tourists, lots of places to buy trinkets or jewelry or junk, or nice stuff, lots of eating places, hotels, historical sites. We spent about 5 hours there, could have spent more but the sun was getting low and we had to drive the 2 hours back. We did see the reenactment of the shootout at the OK Corral which depicted the story of how 3 ranchers were gunned down by Wyatt Earp, his brother, and Doc Holiday. I am not sure how the entire story goes so I will have to rent the movie to get more in depth information.

We started off our visit to Tombstone - by the way, it is known as the town too tough to die because it has survived 2 fires, copper mining and bust where the town's population at one time was over 12,000 people!, the movement of the county seat to another town, etc. - by visiting Boothill Graveyard where 250 graves of outlaws, criminals, victims, hangings, Indian attacks, sickness, prostitutes, upstanding citizens, and a sundry of others lay. Some of the headstones were quite explicit - like, Lester Moore - "Here lies Lester Moore, Four Slugs from a .44, No Less, No more." Cute! After this visit we then went into the town and parked and started our visit. We went to the Helldorago Shootout which is a comical look at cowboy shootouts.

At 3:30 the arguments and fighting started down the main street, prepping the tourists to follow along and by 4pm you were brought along to the actual place where the shootout took place at the OK Corral. After this show we then watched a movie on the history of Tombstone and some of the confusion of the shootout was explained. On our drive back to Picacho we were treated to a fabulous sunset - the sky looked like it was on fire, the peach and melon colors were amazing - reminded us alot of the sunsets while we were in Santa Fe. Fun day and we know our guests really enjoyed themselves.