Road Trip: Two Tickets to the Gun Show!

The first stop on our epic road trip across the country was Tombstone, AZ. It was a bit of a detour, but when you’re within 30 minutes of a place that has not one, but TWO movies made about it, then maybe you should go see what all the fuss is. Our first stop in Tombstone was the OK Corral.

Did you know that the OK Corral was a carriage repair shop back in the day? So basically it was a shoot out at the O’Reilly’s or Pep Boys. (This information lead to a lot of jingle singing: “O O O O’Reilly’s … Wyatt Earp!”) Also did you know that the shoot out was not at the OK Corral, but in the lot behind the OK Corral? On our trip, we learned that a LOT of historical things don’t happen where you think they do, but instead nearby.This may have been my favorite “historical” item at the OK Corral:The next stop was to the office/museum for the town newspaper, the Tombstone Epitaph. They have a small museum on printing and with your gun fight tickets, they give you a free copy of the Epitaph from the day after the shoot out.We then walked around the town a bit more. Our favorite stop was the Bird Cage Theatre. You can walk inside the lobby and look around (and there is an amazing old poster from their last show, The Human Fly, in which ladies put magnets on their shoes and walked around on the ceiling, while their dresses fell down towards the floor. Apparently, a very popular show), but we would recommend paying the little bit extra and going through the theatre, the bordello rooms, the casino in the basement, etc.And on the way out of town we stopped at the Boothill Graveyard to check out the graves. Note that the graves of the men shot at the OK Corral state that they were murdered, but during the gun show, they are portrayed as the bad guys. I guess it all depends on who is telling the story.

And then on our way back to the highway, we stopped at the Old Benson Ice Cream Stop to get some ice cream! It was a life saver!