We awoke after a fitful night's sleep with sun streaming in on my face and the car like a sauna! I felt like I had done several rounds in the ring with Mohammed Ali or something - and it was still only 6am! - nothing open - so we started up the car and drove a little way up the road where we found an overflow car park down a little incline, and parked the car up under a tree there. We tried to sleep some more but this was particularly difficult for me as unfortunately, first thing in the morning, like most people, I need the loo - and there's no toilets around, no bushes... it was agony. Anyway, we finally got up around 7.30am and this time we found a cafe / diner open for breakfast.
We took full advantage of the facilities there as with the temperatures in the car having been so warm, plus with having been in Mexico the day before, I really needed a shower! Unfortunately being only a cafe restroom, I had to endure a TP wash instead, but it went a long way to making me feel a lot better! We then had a leisurely breakfast whilst we tried to properly wake up. My head was absolutely killing me! I hate sleeping rough! Anyway, our server was really friendly, he looked a lot like a hell's angel or something, but he seemed nice, and he told us a lot about the town and things that we should see.
Seems for once luck was on our side, and we had picked a good day to be in Tombstone, because it was one of their 'vigilante' weekends - which meant that a whole bunch of Wyatt Earp wannabes were in town dressed as if they had just stepped off the set of "The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp" or "Gunfight At The O.K. Corrall" or something, and giving dramatic re-enactments all weekend of important (and not-so-important) events in the town's history, like the shootout at the O.K. Corrall and stuff like that. It was really cool.
We started off our day with a trolley car tour of town, saw the various sights, like Wyatt Earp's house, Big Nose Kate's saloon, Boothill graveyard and so on. We then hit the main street. All the vigilantes were so friendly, everyone was wanting to help us find the sights we wanted to see, or take fab photos and so on. It was just fab. All the shops and saloons along the main street, Allen St, are exactly as they would've been in Wyatt Earp's day - wide verandah'd shop fronts, locals hanging out over the banisters, watching the goings on in the street, swing door saloons being flung open to reveal some unsavoury gunslinger or local hooligan, horse and coaches tied up outside.... and the local sheriff, Wyatt Earp, patrolling to check all was in order. Obviously he didn't take a shine to us, because we were publicly arrested, tried and hung in the middle of the road. This was somewhat distressing, and all a bit too much, so we headed into Big Nose Kate's for a morning tea pick-me-up to recover (but were accosted by gunslingers on the way in!)
Whilst we were in Big Nose Kate's we heard a commotion outside, and rushed out to see what was going on. The vigilantes were holding their various dramatic re-enactments all throughout the day, and in this instance, a wife was berating her husband for being out late drinking, or some such - and he tried to prove he wasn't drunk by shooting a bottle off some bloke's head, and got shot himself! The re-enactments were really well done and you really felt like you were back in the wild west.
After we saw all we could of the main street, we went to see the silver mine - the "Good Enough Mine". The tour was terribly interesting, because this mine, and others like it, was the whole reason that Tombstone was founded. In fact, the town of Tombstone got its name because the founder, Ed Schieffelin, when he decided to go out looking for silver in Apache territory, was told that all he'd find out there was his own 'tombstone'. And the 'Good Enough' mine got its name because a year later, when he filed his second claim, he felt the silver ore was so rich that it was 'good enough' to satisfy him. He had the last laugh, didn't he - he struck it rich!
The mine is just a block or so away from the main street in town, so you could see that it was a really easy for the miners when they finished their shift to wander back into town and spend their wages in one of the many saloons there. And in those days, the saloons were open 24 hours a day, as the mines never closed. So they were really onto a good thing too. Anyway, the tour was really interesting, and you can see a video of it here.
We headed back into town, like the miners would have, after our visit to the mine, and made for another of the saloons in the main street, I think it might've been the Crystal Palace Saloon. Like in Big Nose Kate's the barmen and waitresses were all done up in outfits of the time, and the decor was as it would've been in the 1880's in Tombstone. This time I discovered old time sarsparilla on the menu, so I just had to have one... and it was just glorious! 
We spent quite happily a good several hours in Tombstone, so it was mid-late afternoon by the time we left - although we first stopped off at the Boot Hill Graveyard for a wander around the tombstones. Very interesting they were too, with funny inscriptions on some of the graves: here is my personal favourite... 
Anyway, Agnieszka had seen a flyer for neighbouring Bisbee which looked somewhat interesting, so we headed off there - but in fact the flyer had been written, I'm sure, by the Lonely planet people covering the Arizona chapter, and so it was a little disappointing, particularly as the town was in the opposite direction to that which we needed to go. We decided to make it a little worthwhile so we had a late lunch / early dinner there before starting our backtrack to the main highway.
By this stage in the trip Aga has begun to talk of going to L.A. I don't want to burst her bubble, but with only 2 nights left of car hire remaining, and more than 500 miles to L.A., I can't see how this is going to happen. I'll just bite my tongue for now, we still have a lot of ground to cover, let's see how we get on... stay tuned for more of Aga and Kylie's Excellent Adventure...!
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