January 27-28, 2015 (Benson, AZ)

Tuesday

We are headed to Benson, AZ so after dumping our tanks we headed down the road.  I'm happy to report that we both survived taking short showers and using paper plates, so we didn't fill up our black/gray tanks.  Rich was very thoughtful and the last two days decided to use the showers in the campground so that it would leave more room in the tanks for my showers.  I have such a thoughtful husband.

We left around 11:30 and arrived at 12:30 p.m. at Butterfield RV Resort & Observatory, a very short trip which was nice.  We did our normal set up routine and then got to sit in our chairs and relax in the sun.  We met our next door neighbors Dave and Barb from Castle Rock, WA so had a good time visiting with them.  This park is in town and right behind a Safeway store, so we walked over and got a few groceries.  We had a nice BBQ steak dinner and after our routine walk through the park to check it out, we relaxed the rest of the evening.  I will have to say that the one negative about this park is that a train track runs through town and the trains have to blow the whistles at all the crossings.  Yikes.....hope we get used to it real soon.  We knew before coming to this park that it was a problem through doing some rv park reviews but decided to take a chance anyway.  

Wednesday

Today our plan is to tour Tombstone, the old cowboy town.  After breakfast we headed out and our first stop coming into Tombstone was Boothill.  Now I have to claim ignorance and didn't really know all the history of this famous graveyard until Rich filled me in.  I guess I haven't watched enough movies or read enough westerns.  When we went into the gift shop we were surprised to find that entry into the graveyard was free....nice.  It really was fascinating walking around and checking out all the graves.  I'll let the pictures do the talking of our time there.....

Boothill Graveyard

Sign as you enter into the gift shop.....

Indian Bill

Thos Cowan 1881 age 11 months &
May Doody 1881 diptheria

This guy was hanged

One of many unknown grave sites...this person was found in an abandoned mine

These gents were killed in the famous gunfight at the OK Corral

We spent quite a bit of time wandering around and reading all the tombstones.  It did give you a sense of history and how our country was settled in the early days.  I'm really glad we stopped.  

After our visit to Boothill we drove on into town and found a parking spot near the courthouse in Tombstone.

We spent some time walking the historic streets of Tombstone which they had blocked off from traffic.  

We had lunch at Big Nose Kate's (Kate was a prostitute and the common in law wife of gunfighter Doc Holliday)

Inside Big Nose Kate's...it was very crowded.  They had a guy singing old western songs and you could go down in the basement and see the old shaft that the night watchman dug which went into one of the many mines in the area.  He is rumored to still be roaming the building at night guarding his stash of ore that he stole.....

One of the 3 gunfight shows that they hold in town.  This one was a comedy.  We wished we would have realized they had 3 different ones because we would have chosen the one they hold at the OK Corral.....oh well, next time.

Street view of Historic Tombstone

This building was fun to tour....it was one of the local newspapers that covered the story of the gunfight at OK Corral.  They still had some of the old printing presses and copy from the newspaper pages.

Rich standing outside the remade version of the OK Corral.  You can't go inside unless you pay a pretty price and we decided that since it wasn't the original that we didn't want to shell out the $$$ to see inside.

We really enjoyed our day touring Tombstone but were a little disappointed that it was so "touristy" and pricey.  The best value and the most interesting site turned out to be the Boothill graveyard.  We are glad that we got to see this little bit of Western history.

After we got back from our tour of Tombstone we decided to sign up for the nightly observatory show since there was rain scheduled after tomorrow for the next couple of days.  Boy am I glad we did.  It was absolutely fascinating and it was free!  It made putting up with the train noise worth it.  If you are ever in Benson, you should spend at least one night here and take in the show.l  The telescope is very big, it's a Meade LX-200 GPS 16 inch Schmidt-Cassegraine telescope.....which means nothing to me, but they said it was like one they would use in universities.  We got to view Venus, the Moon, Orion Nebula, Sirius, Beetlejuice(not spelled correctly but that's how you pronounce it), and Jupiter.  I can't tell you how much I/we enjoyed this.  At one point, Rich almost had to get up and tear me away from the telescope so the other guests could take a look.  I was trying not to take too long, but it was just so fascinating.