The Magical Mystery Tour Continues in the Old West

Tim: We drove another long day today in our quest for Eureka, California. Today was probably the best day we have had on our trip thus far. We started off the day after checking out of our new official lodging provider, KOA Kampgrounds. In addition, we are calling this journey the "Pause on Purpose" Tour (pretty catchy slogan, don't you think?).

We headed out of Benson, Arizona this morning to arguably the most historic site in the wild west- Tombstone, Arizona. It was roughly 20 miles away from Benson and was very interesting. First, we toured Boot Hill Cemetery, the legendary final resting place of many residents of this town as well as the notorious three cowboys who were shot down by the Earps and Doc Holliday at the OK Corral: Billy Clanton, Tom McLaury and Frank McLaury. Some of the grave markers there were just down right funny and it seemed everyone who was buried there died a violent death. You can find all kinds of mini-essays on wooden grave markers, such as one that marks the grave of an innocent man: “Here lies George Johnson/ Hanged by mistake in 1882/ He was right/ We was wrong/ But we strung him up/ And now he’s gone.” The grave marker for Lester Moore reads: “Here lies Lester Moore/ Four slugs from a .44/ No Les/ No More.” (see picture below)
Next, we headed into town and walked around Fremont Street near the OK Corral. After eating lunch at the OK Cafe (right across from the site of the shooting with a sign above the door saying "Cowboys! Scrape s*** from boots before entering"), we headed into the OK Corral for the 2 p.m. daily reenactment of the famous gun fight. (See picture below)

The actual site of the gun fight was very small, which never seems the case in all of the movies.

After the show, we drove out of town and headed for our next destination: Kingman, Arizona. We drove through two of Arizona's largest cities, Tucson and Phoenix, today. Just outside of Tucson we stopped in Saguaro National Park to view all of the magnificent Saguaro Cacti, the state flower of Arizona. The park was basically a forest of cacti. The largest plants, with more than 5 arms, are estimated to be 200 years old and can be 30 feet tall, like the one I am posting up right here (okay, it is March Madness and I could not resist). Pretty big, aren't they?

Visiting this park was a truly spectacular experience that we both highly recommend if you are ever down here.

As we headed across the state toward Kingman, we saw another incredible sunset. Every sunset has been different and spectacular. At night, the sky is so big and you can see stars everywhere.

We will head out tomorrow for Hoover Dam (about an hour and a half north of here), then onward to Yosemite tomorrow night. We have seen so many things already and expect to see even more in the coming days. We will leave you with a picture of our trusty Honda Element (the "El") in Saguaro National Park. Have a great day tomorrow and we will post up more tomorrow evening.