Greetings from Tombstone, Arizona.
As I blogged earlier, we spent one day and night at the Golden Nugget on Fremont St. in down town Las Vegas. Granted, it didn't have all the bells and whistles as the first place we stayed at, but I liked it better. More retro if you will. Lot's of dark wood, glass, brass and marble. The staff seemed to be less geared to separating the rube from his money. Don't get me wrong, I understand totally that's what they are there for, but you can be just a little less obvious about it. All the staff at the Golden Nugget were great and very customer oriented.
At the Golden Nugget, I had my own personal retro moment. I put on my most obnoxious Hawaiian shirt, a straw snap brim hat and strolled down to the pool. While there, I found a very comfortable chair and acting under the suggestion of the lovely Miss Nancy, ordered a Vodka Gimlet. (Sorry Paw-Paw, it was too hot for a bourbon.) So there I sat, in 115 degree heat sipping my drink, checking out the scenery. It wasn't too bad, way too many body piercings and more body ink than you would see in San Diego on a Saturday night for my taste, but hey, that's the way of the world these days.
The drive from Las Vegas to Tombstone took about 8 hours, and we took a combination route of scenic and urban which was nice because when you got tired of looking at one type of scenery, it would change. We got down to Tombstone about dark and I noticed a whole lot of Border Patrol vehicles in the area. The had set up at least two check points on roads leading out of Tombstone which is under 50 miles from the border. Having been here and talked to some of the locals, there is a very strong siege mentality down here. They are being overrun by illegals and feel like the federal government just isn't doing anything to solve the problem. As one old timer told me " Our Governor, well she has a bigger set of balls than the President." He also told me with that " We get screwed twice, The Feds spend our tax money, fighting the new law, the state spends our other taxes on defending the law."
I have enjoyed what I have seen of Tombstone. For those who saw the movie, I saw the shoot- out site, Fly's Photography Studio, the Bird Cage Theater, The Oriental Saloon, Boot Hill Cemetery and a few other spots. Since this is a tourist site, there is a bunch of crap you need to sift through. Fudge stores old timey photo stands, pizza stands and so on, but there is enough good stuff to make it worth your while. The one thing that just leaped out at me was that everything is so much smaller than you would think from watching the movies. The inside of the Bird Cage doesn't seem big enough to swing a cat in. But it was lively enough since they have counted about 140 bullet holes in the ceilings and walls that were put there in it's 9 year history of 24 hour operation.
Another thing that I noticed is that almost every business had a "No Firearms Allowed" sign on it's door. I don't know if it is because they don't want the Cowboy action shooter types to get carried away, or if it's because they have a problem with average folks C.C.W. I didn't ask. There were a few gun stores in town, but they didn't have a lot that tripped my trigger (pun intended) Most of the prices were a bit high and it would have been a bit of a hassle getting anything back to North Carolina.
Tomorrow, we head out back to up to Northern Arizona, one of the locals told us about Old Tucson Movie studios where they film western movies and television shows. It isn't too far out of the way, so we might stop for a little bit.
More later.........
