Tombstone (7 Dec 06)

Pe had fond memories of visiting a ghost town and thought it may have been Tombstone, and since we were in the area we decided to check it out. Boot Hill, the reasonably famous cemetery of those wild and woolly cow pokes was first on the list and may I say...humph.

When Pe visited back in 1992, the tombstones of Boot Hill were the originals - or at least appeared as though they could have been... Now they are gay-arsed crosses of yellow painted metal, more at home at the Western section of Movie World than a reasonably famous cemetery of wild and woolly cow pokes. Still, some of the inscriptions are amusing - showing a lighter side of the community at large.



And can I say that mandatory donations are a fucking load of shit. Just come out and charge people you unscrupulous fucks.

Despite the disappointment of Boot Hill, and the simple fact that Tombstone is not a ghost town, we wombled about, stumbling into the old courthouse museum with a careful eye on the car and the jar-headed, buck-toothed deviant and his porcupine girlfriend/cousin that were stink-eyeing the world at large.

The courthouse/museum's factuation range was varied and covered the town's origins, it's cow-based history, women and schooling, rifles, the saga of fighting and reparating with the natives, the law, the court, the punishment, the town, and a variety of stories about various characters about the town (like the poor bugger who bought a lot for prospecting, grew old and weary of prospecting, sold the land for less than he'd paid, only to have the new owner prospect a massive gold vein).

And of course, it had a shotgun full of info about the infamous shooting. No one really knows what happened at the OK Corral, since the cow rustlers were all shot and the law were kind of known to be a bit lean on morality (Ahhh Doc Holiday - how'd that syphillis* go for you?). Even the historians studying the shooting cannot come to a general consensus - except for the fact that the Earps and Doctor Syph* were full of shit and spitting tobacco.

*Admittedly, Doctor Syph actually died of Tuberculosis or "Consumption", not Syphillis, but details shouldn't get in the way of saying that someonw died of Syphillis, should they?

Brimming like-an-over-sized-Fedora-hat with information, we rustled up a saloon to unbrim our heads. As we stepped through the classic saloon doors we felt much like the tourists we were, as the honky tonk piano, poker players, barman, dancers, and whores all stopped to stare at us. Ok, it was a bunch of old guys and they were watching the news but the effect was not much the same. We lassoed a tasty local beer and this fruity little number: Electric Dave's IPA. It did not smell like Attitude, it did not smell like Dave's arsehole. It was ok. P liked it.

At the end of a long day, and driving through the Tuscon so well-known to all those Beatles fans, we stopped in for some genuine close-to-the-border Mexican food. At least the beer was Mexican, even if nothing else in the place was.