Tombstone

On Thursday, 3/26/15 we left Quail Ridge RV Park in Huachuka City and made the trip over to Tombstone for a 5 day stay. Tombstone is a favorite place of ours. We've been there a couple of times visiting Jerry & Kitty when they stayed at Stampede RV Park. Now it was our turn to stay at Stampede RV park and have friends visit us. We arrived late morning and got ourselves settled in.....

This was right down the road from us.....

And this was our spot

The Office complex

After we got ourselves settled, it was time to head up Allen St to Big Nose Kates to meet Dick & Patti for lunch. Big Nose Kates is one of our favorite places in Tombstone- great atmosphere, good entertainment, and even better food. The beer is not bad either.

Took this pic during my early morning walk. It kind of explains everything about the place.

Lunch gets pretty busy, so we had planned on meeting up around 11:30 to make sure we got a good seat......

Our friends Dick & Patti from Durango

And this was how close we sat to the entertainment

Urinal in mens room is filled with ice cubes......the sign is an interesting talking piece.

Friday was a walk-around day. The park we are in is right on Allen St and Toughnut St, so if we leave the park by one way we are on Allen St. If we use the other exit, we are on Toughnut St. Today we left and headed up Toughnut St to go to the Tombstone Courthouse which was no more than about 4 blocks away. What an interesting place. So much history.

One area that was especially interesting was the one with paintings of the Gunfight at the OK Corral. Well done and told quite a story.

No tour of the courthouse would be complete with out a viewing of the back yard........

After we had spent about an hour or so(and some money in the Gift Shop), it was time to move on. We did some more wandering around the side streets of Tombstone and then decided it was time for lunch. And did we pick a winner.......

The special of the day was a Reuben with fries and cole slaw. It was excellent. We mentioned that we did some wandering around some of the side streets, here is a sampling of what we saw.....

Motorcycles, especially Harley's are a common site here

Looking up Allen St

Cycles parked at the local American Legion on Allen St.

A common site throughout the day

A Barber Shop Quartet performing in front of the Visitors Center

Saturday night was special. Every 4th saturday of the month they have Twilight in Tombstone. All of the merchants stay open later and some put on special entertainment. The merchants association sponsors reenactments on the main street(Allen Street), throughout the evening. Everyone is dressed in full regalia. We had a ball. As is evidenced by the pictures.....

The "woman" on the left was one of our neighbors at Stampede. She gets right in to the Reenactment thing. Tonight she was dressed up as a "woman of the night". The guy, is my old buddy Wyatt Earp.

Street reenactments

That's our neighbor- right into it

And a good time was had by all

Some more pics from the Twilight in Tombstone......

Another "Lady of the Night"that I talked into sitting with this couple for a picture

Made this kids day......that's my buddy Wyatt Earp the 2nd from right

At the 4 Deuces with the Stage coach Driver. What a character. Reminded me of Marty Grimes

Entertainment at the 4 Deuces - Pat & Frank. They were good.

Guitar and Harmonica were their instruments.

Doc Hollidays Saloon

And then it got to be sunday and our friends from Butterfield made the trip down to join us for lunch at Big Nose Kate's. What a great time we had.

At Big Nose Kates with from left: Bobby, Keith Dorann, Mary, Me (hiding behind Jerry), Paula, Kitty, and Jerry

Keith got volunteered to be strung up....

From Big Nose Kates we did some wandering, watched some more reenactments, the women did some shopping, and then it was time for a beer. Doc Holliday's Saloon just happened to be close by.

The gang at Doc Holliday's Saloon

And this was our bartender. What a character he was.

And then it was time for our friends to leave. This would be the last time we would be seeing them until hopefully next season. We all planned to reunite at Butterfield some time this coming winter.

And then some closing thoughts about Tombstone.

We enjoyed Moe's for breakfast. Moe is the 81+ year old owner of Stampede RV Park. They put on a pretty good breakfast each morning and how many places can you go for breakfast where you are entertained by the owners Macaw who goes by the name of Caesar. Caesar would say Hello to all and then would get unusually loud when he wasn't fed.
The 4 Deuces. We stopped there a couple of times and found we really liked the place.

And some last thoughts.......

In front of the OK Corral. This is what the town is all about. That's Doc Holliday on the left

AND THIS SAYS IT ALL. WE LOVED TOMBSTONE!

Suguaro SKP Park

When we left Casa Grande our next destination was Suguaro SKP Park in Benson. This was the very first place we stayed at when we got to AZ way back in October. Fitting that we make a return trip before leaving the area. Our plan was to stay for 4 days and then head to Huachuka City for a couple of days, then off to Tombstone for 5 days, before leaving the state of AZ for about 2 weeks in NM.

Our spot. Believe it or not, we got the only full hookup site in the boon docking area. Turns out the park was celebrating 25 year anniversary so it was FULL. We lucked out.

A view east to the Dragoon Mtns from our site

I mentioned the Silver Anniversary the park was celebrating. All residents were in attendance and there was something going on just about every day for the week. We happened in right in the middle of it and were fortunate to be able to participate and enjoy some of the celebrations.....like the parade which we viewed from the comfort of our chairs right behind our Airstream.....

Saturday night was party night in the clubhouse. They especially honored a number of the original founders/owners.....

And then finished up the night with a band and dancing. A good time was had by all.

While we were at the park, we took the opportunity to visit with old friends at Butterfield RV Resort and so headed over Friday afternoon for their Happy Hour......

Last opportunity for us to see a lot of them.....Jay & Linda were heading back home to Nebraska. Ken & Judy were leaving for Nebraska and Ken was traveling from there to Alaska to see Granddaughter HS graduation. When Ken returned, they were heading to Minnesota for a summer work job. Dick & Patti were leaving the following week, as were Don & Pam. All in all, pretty sad day for all of us. Although we all did make plans to reunite back here next year.

While we were at Saguaro, we met some interesting people. I re-met Ed Thomas, the guy that kind of "took us under his wing" our first stay there back in October. He was all caught up in the Silver Anniversary, but still had time to say hello. And then one day I was out walking and noticed a truck with NH plates on it. Stopped to say hello and found out they were from Concord, NH. And when he asked me where I was from and I replied just outside of Brattleboro, Vt he said that back in the 70's he had lived in an apartment above Stockwell's store in West Brattleboro. And then there was Jan & Allan Parmenter. We met them at the dinner/party on Saturday night. Turns out they are also from Vt in the Rutland / Middlebury area. We had a nice conversation with them that night and even continued it after at their lot. Seems they have a lot to do with the Navajo - even to the point of having an adopted grandmother. They shared their stories of what they do for her and the organization that they belong to to try and help out a people that are really in need. We were all ears. And so thankful for them sharing their story. We exchanged contact info and promised to be in touch with them.

We left Suguaro SKP CoOp park on 3/23/15.

Huachuka City, AZ

And then it was time to leave the Benson, AZ area. We have spent most of our time here the past 5 months and it is with mixed emotions that we leave. First stop before leaving Benson and Saguaro SKP Park was Shannon's Auto Parts where we finished up project - replacing all rubber valve stems on Airstream Trailer tires with steel valve stems and then replacing all lug nuts, with solid, steel lugs. Crazy how Airstream utulizes a metric thread on the lug and then puts a Standard Thread cap on the nut. This cap is glued on so that the first time you put an air wrench to it, it causes problems. To avoid this we had them all replaced. Have a special socket that will allow us to use any tire wrench to remove lugs.  This project was in preparation of installing the Air Pressure Monitoring System we bought at the Escapade in Tucson. With this done, we were on our way - for a breakfast break. Stopped at Reb's Coffee Shop & Cafe- all the time we spent in Benson, this was the first time. Not a bad place. Noticed this sign on the wall while eating......

John Deere - Runs good. Missing steering wheel and seat. Ideal for the person who has lost his ass and doesn't know which way to turn.

And then it was off to Huachuka City, which was just a short 15 mile run down RT 90. We stayed at Quails Ridge RV Resort 3/24 & 3/25.....

Our neighbors there were a couple from Wyoming, Vernon(Smitty) & Becky Smith. They had actually "hosted" at a summer camp in Vermont in the vicinity of Maidstone Lake in the northeast kingdom. Small world.

While in the area, we took advantage of some nice restaurants available. The first night there, we took a ride in to Sierra Vista and did Italian with a stop at Olive Garden. The real treat was the next night when we traveled west about 22 miles to Sonoita and ate at a place that was recommended by Sparky during our stay at Cochise Terrace. We were not disappointed. Their specialty is steak. Home grown beef and cooked over Mesquite fire.

The sign out front advertising the nights entertainment

A view of the inside- to where the steaks are cooked!

A look towards the Saloon portion

The nights entertainment.

I have to say, we did get our moneys worth that night. Definitely a place that I would go back to. Back at the park, you can't help but notice all of the 4 wheelers. This is definitely big in this area. Trails are nearby....

And then it was time to pack up and head out. Our 2 days here were good. Nice little park. Then it was off to Tombstone.