Where am I? Day four!?!

Off to Bisbee... Wheee...!!! What was in Bisbee? Was it something I mentioned while thumbing through a tourist guide? Did Mavis bring it up? Who brought up Bisbee, anyway? No one knew and no one asked. It was just on the agenda...




(Shady Dell Photo courtesy of wikipedia)
Day four of the desert journey took us to Bisbee, a pot-smoking little bohemian town. It is a former mining town just across the border from Mexico. I got a nice picture of a couple of boys that I thought were rolling a joint in front of the historical society. When we walked right in front of them, one was licking the rolling paper. Apparently it is quite open. In fact, it is said that nearby Tombstone is "a town too tough to die" and Bisbee is a "town too high to care".


To demonstrate this fact, these two guys were rolling a joint on the ledge in front of the historical society. How quaint! They must be the Chamber of Commerce.


This is the Copper Queen Hotel. The hotel to end all hotels in this little mining town. It looks pretty European.


I thought I was bad at taking the Christmas decorations down! Such a large post office for such a small town. I wonder if this is the way it originally looked. I suppose I could google it...if I had time. I am already spending homework time on this, so I had better not. Let me know if you do.


The town was built on a hill. Interesting is the fact that there were not always streets going up those hills. Often there was just a stairway. It is probably a good thing they didn't get snow there. In a way the steps are endearing...



but not always...

I made a big mistake when we were driving off between the green patina bluffs by not taking a picture of them. It was interesting to see the amount of copper that was in those hills and the massive patina that emphasized it.

From Bisbee we hit Tombstone. What a rip off!!! It is THE single worst tourist trap that I have ever seen! I was literally ticked off at the whole darn town. I shouldn't even show a picture of the town. I give it 0 stars!! Zippo! Do you want to see the OK Corral? It is behind a wall and the only way to get to it is by going into a shop and paying the entrance fee for a show where you sit on bleachers. Sometimes you really don't want or need the whole shebang. You just want to see the sight, click a photo and go on your way. No, not there. There they say they have the largest rosebush! But I will not pay $3 to go look at it and say, "Gee, that IS big!" I am not sure what was originally there and what was staged to look as if. Each shop had its own "museum" in the back in which they each charged for you to go back into what couldn't be a very large collection of memorabilia. This town is a capitalist quack's idea of what history should be and it isn't worth going out of your way for!

Real? (Front of the building)


Or not... (side of the same building)



Real town?

With badly faux painted buildings!?!



After seeing the city, we decided that maybe Boothill could redeem the town's historical virtue...
How nice of them. I have seen pictures of this several years ago and the original sticks and signs were there. In order to enable viewers to better see the epitaphs, they were nice enough to replace the old ones with brand new freshly painted ones on freshly painted pipes! How considerate!


Here is the legendary Lester Moore epitaph:
Also freshly repainted!

I think we should go to the old graveyards on the east coast, and you know those thinning tombstones where the names are barely visible? I think we should put brand spanking new stones on them! Heck, we could just pack up the bones and put them in a mausoleum! Now that is preserving history!


After Tombstone - such a fitting name for its place where historical preservation has passed away - we went to Fairbank. Fairbank is a ghost town that isn't as old as some, but apparently has more left to it than many that are simply foundations if that. They fenced (with chainlink so you can still see them!) off the old post office and its connected "downtown" buildings for safety reasons, but it would sure be nice to be able to peek inside them sometime.


The old schoolhouse:


Ye olde public restroom (A two holer!):


After Fairbank, we went back to the main highway. Just one more stop and we were done for the day! Well...maybe two. Border Patrol had a blockade that we had to get through. I bit my lip trying not to say, "Si, senor! Todo esta bien aqui!" But we made it and I did say, "Whew! We got away! Yee-hah!"...followed by the rest of Speedy Gonzalez's quotes when he has fled his predators! We all laughed! It was just that kind of day.

Our next stop was a rock formation that puzzled and awed Mavis. She insisted that we go to see the rocks and see if I could get a better picture than she could. It took a little rock climbing, watching out for snakes, scorpians, and small dragons (right, Eric?) as well as some trespassing and interstate traffic avoidance, but mission accomplished. (Thanks, GW, now I hate to even say that phrase!) Here are the photos she liked along with some that I took for moui!