It was several hundred miles of driving from El Paso to Tombstone, Arizona - in fact we had to drive clean through the bottom of New Mexico, pretty much without stopping... Luckily the highways in the US are very good, so it wasn’t so difficult - although I did have to give it over to Agnieszka at one point (even though she’s not on the hire contact - naughty, I know, risky, too, but necessary). Our aim was to stay probably in the the KOA nearest to Tombstone, but to go to Tombstone first as we’d read that they have saloons there done up in the style of the Wild West, so we’d hoped to get there in time for a late dinner and then drive back and set up our tent, thus heading back to Tombstone the next day to see the rest of the town. But time kept getting the better of us, and when we reached the camp ground it was already past 9pm. Not knowing what time the restaurants might close, we carried on another 30-40 miles to Tombstone, but we didn’t get there until 10pm and at this point, nothing was open, save for an extremely dodgy looking bar, whose owner told us that all the touristy stuff had shut down around 7pm or something like this, and there was nowhere else in town to eat.
This put us in a bit of a sticky situation, because if we headed back to our campground, being some 30-40 miles back the way we had just come, and then the next day headed back to Tombstone - and then back to the main highway - well, we’d add an extra 120miles to our trip and travel the same road 3 times (4 if you count that we’d just done it anyway). That seemed just a little bit ridiculous, just so we could see some Wild West.
So we decided to see if there wasn’t a campground nearer to Tombstone - we’d seen a few signs on the way, and also, surely with Tombstone being a tourist attraction, you’d think there’d be accomodation around... But the campground signs we’d seen turned out to be for RV vehicles only. In fact, one campground had a sign warning about snakes in the area and the like, which are apparently around at the moment. This definitely did not make us feel favourable about pitching our tent there, or even anywhere by the side of the road - snakes don’t know any boundaries, now do they? And anyway, as for camping by the side of the road, well, despite the snakes, we’d seen pigs too (police) on the highway, and we didn’t know what the law was about that anyway. So, by now its getting on for 11pm, and we headed back into town and tried EVERY MOTEL we saw. They were all closed - well at least their offices were, as it was clear there were guests in the motel. Not one had an office that was open, and by now its 11.30pm and we were bone tired, hungry, and more than just a little fed up. We’d been to Mexico and back in the same day, and we needed a shower and a sleep - but there was no way we were going to get that. With a 40 mile trip back to the campground, and with the level of tiredness of both of us - we just wouldn’t have made it.
So we pulled over to the kerb in some quiet street, outside someone’s house, and parked our car like it belonged there. Locked all the doors, got out the sleeping bags, reclined our chairs to the max - and slept the worst sleep it is humanly possible to have! For one, it was majorly uncomfortable, with your feet hanging down by the accelerator (trying to make sure you don’t accidentally rest them on the brake and flatten your battery!) and your back arched slightly unusually. Second, it was absolutely stinking hot in there - and we couldn’t really open a window, because - third, I was terrified that some looney out on the razz would see us, break the windows and attack us in our sleep, or something. Which meant that every sound, every cricket’s chirp, every dog’s bark, had me sat bolt upright in pure fear. Agnieszka was ok, she slept through it, but not me.... I had the worst night’s sleep ever imaginable...plus anyway, isn’t Tombstone supposed to be haunted... cue: Twilight Zone theme...doo doo doo doo...
No comments:
Post a Comment