| Submitted by: Evelyn C. LeeperUnited States |
| Submission Date: 14 February 2005 |
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These were not entirely accurate to the description given on the audio program of readings from eyewitness accounts. For example, one of the McLaurys was described as pulling open his frock coat, yet the statue had him in a shirt and vest only. Mark supplemented the audio program by reading aloud Nash's description of the gunfight from BLOODLETTERS AND BAD MEN. (As far as the movies go, they're all grossly inaccurate; don't trust them. And there was even a 'Star Trek' episode set here: 'Spectre of the Gun.')
We also took a look in the two saloons. The Crystal Palace is more staid, with a beautiful polished-wood-framed mirror over the bar. Big Nose Kate's Saloon was more informal, with sawdust on the floor. For our drink, though, we went back to the Longhorn and had a sarsparilla. It had a paper label on the bottle neck that said, 'Big Nose Kate's Sarsparilla,' but the bottle was clearly Sioux City Sarsparilla. (Well, maybe not clearly, but it was.)
After the break we took a quick look at the 'Tombstone Epitaph' office and then drove to Boot Hill, or (as it's called on the sign) 'Boothill Graveyard and Jewish Memorial.' Jewish Memorial? I know Wyatt Earp's wife was Jewish, but he and she are both buried somewhere in California. Mystified, we entered the graveyard through the Boot Hill Gift Shop. There is no admission; it was probably decided that charging admission to a graveyard was going a bit too far. The grave markers were all of more recent vintage than the graves, though I assume the information on them is identical to the originals. For example, for one man who died of smallpox, the marker says that a rope was flung around his feet and he was dragged to Boot Hill--obviously to avoid contaminating anyone. The McLaurys and Billy Clanton are buried here, and there is even a section set aside for the Chinese, with Quong Kee having the most elaborate grave and marker (this one original) of any in Boot Hill. He died in 1938 in his late eighties and was buried in Benson (where he was living at the time) before word of his death got back to Tombstone. When Tombstone did hear, they insisted on bringing the body back to the town where he had lived most of his life, and giving him a fitting memorial.
Ah, yes, memorial--as in, what is the Jewish memorial? Well, a sign at one corner of Boot Hill pointed down a trail and said 'Jewish Cemetery and Memorial.' And down the trail there was indeed a Jewish memorial, of very recent vintage (1984), dedicated to the Jewish settlers of the area and their Indian friends. It sits where the old Jewish cemetery was; the walls are still visible but there are no markers left. For all its isolation, however, the memorial does get visitors. It is a Jewish custom when visiting a grave to place a small stone on it. The memorial is piled high with stones.
(For those of you surprised at the idea of Jewish in old Tombstone, I recommend PIONEER JEWS by Harriet and Fred Rochlin.)
We had planned to drive to Tucson after Tombstone, but since it was early we decided to go to Bisbee first, twenty-four miles east on AZ 80. Bisbee used to be a copper mining town, but in the 1940s the mines finally gave out and were closed. The town is still very quaint-looking (with its 'gingerbread buildings,' as one tour book describes it) and has attracted art galleries and such. The main tourist attraction, though, still seems to be the mines--there are tours of the Queen Copper Mine and of an open-pit mine. We took the mine shaft tour, and killed time before it started by wandering around the town. If the bookstore in Tombstone had a limited selection, the One Book Bookstore in Bisbee takes the prize. Walter Swain opened the store to see his book ME 'N HENRY. He now has another store next door, the Other Book Bookstore, to sell his other three books.
The tour started at 2 PM (and cost $7 each, by the way). We began by putting on our sweaters (it's cold in the mine), then slickers, hard hats, and battery-powered lamps (the battery pack hangs on a belt in back of you and the lamp hangs over your shoulder on a cord so that you can point it where you want). We then boarded a train (basically just a series of benches pulled by an engine) and went into the mine. Our guide was a retired miner who was able to tell us about how the mining was done. The train went into the mine horizontally on the third of seven levels (the mine being in a hill). We climbed up to one of the stopes, or sections of the mine between levels where the ore mining was actually done. In the walls by the light of our lamps we could still see copper ore, blue and red against the white limestone. There were even flecks of silver. But this was all too low-grade to be worth extracting the ore from, which was why the mine closed. It was hard to see very well by our lamps but our guide Juan pointed out that the miners originally worked by candlelight and later by kerosene lantern--neither of which was particularly safe around all the dynamite being used. We got a long explanation of how drilling and blasting was done, and all sorts of other information as well. For example, they had the equivalent of a Porta-Potty on each level.
We resurfaced into the heat about 3:45 PM and drove to Tucson, returning 53 miles along AZ 80 and then going 44 miles west on I-10. We stayed at the Discovery Inn right off the interstate for $29 a night, including breakfast. This was even cheaper than the AAA book said. I think the hotels in Arizona are hurting because a lot of conventions are boycotting Arizona because it wouldn't declare Martin Luther King Day a state holiday. This year there is a ballot resolution to do so, while at the same time combining Lincoln's Birthday and Washington's Birthday into one holiday (President's Day). The argument for this is that it won't increase the number of paid holidays, and the hotels are really pushing it. (But I would think most of the hotel's patrons who see the brochures would be from out-of-state and couldn't vote anyway.)
For dinner we drove over to the University of Arizona at Tucson area and ended up choosing Casa Blanca. I had tabouli and grape leaves with an iced cappuccino; Mark had a combination plate. We missed most of the third Presidential debate, which was on during dinner time here.
Now that we're in the Sonoran Desert, the temperature is going up. The highs are in the mid-90s (Fahrenheit) during the days, though it does drop into the 50s at night.
Mileage today: 138 miles.
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Today was our desert day. We started by driving west through Gates Pass and Tucson Mountain Park to the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum. This came highly recommended by many people, and is certainly a unique setting and design for a museum, but we were both disappointed to find that in large part it was basically a zoo. There are some other exhibits as well, of course, in botany and geology, but the main attraction for most people seemed to be the animals. (One person said she saw more animals here than during the rest of her Arizona trip. This was not true for us, but we covered more ground and did more off-road driving and hiking.) The museum is good for children, I suppose (the adult price is $7.95, while the child prices is only $1.50, so it seems more directed at them anyway). The earth sciences pavilion had a fake cave (it was supposed to be sort of like Carlsbad, I guess) so that you could get a feel for what caving was like, and you could go prospecting in the rock border at the end of the exhibit for gem stones the museum 'salted' there.
The zoo areas seemed somewhat cramped (and at one under construction there was a woman painting lichen on the rocks). The aviary was slightly better, though I'm sure the birds feel crowded. We got to see a lot of birds up close (including a hummingbird in flight) and a mouse. In front of the aviary was an interesting sculpture by Dion Wright, sort of the 'ascent of bird' from planaria through dinosaur and so on.
There were some botany exhibits and we found these the most fascinating. Besides learning that the saguaro has wooden supports--it looks like you could just snap it off because you extrapolate from a small cacti--we saw an exhibit on convergent evolution. (I think of this as the 'separated at birth' exhibit.) This exhibit compared the cacti of the Western Hemisphere with the euphorbias of the Eastern Hemisphere and showed many examples of two totally unrelated plants looking almost identical. This is fascinating stuff (as I said)--I would love to find some articles or books on it. (Unfortunately, the only one listed in 'Books in Print' costs $78.50. Maybe Stephen Jay Gould has written something about it.)
We had a brief snack in the cafeteria, which shows their environmentalism by recycling Styrofoam (one of the few places I've seen that does so). Arizona strikes me as a basically conservative state, but one that is strong on environmental issues. (Or at least some of them. They still refuse to ban steel-jawed leg traps.) Then again, I could be all wet.
We had started at the museum at 8:30 AM (opening time) and finished about noon. Driving a few miles further down the road, we reached the Saguaro National Monument. Saguaro (pronounced sa-WAR-oh) is the archetypal cactus--round center stalk with 'arms' sticking out and curving up (usually, though they can grow in other directions). Of course, the arms don't start to grow until the trunk is about ten feet high, so most of the cartoons (like in 'Peanuts') of them show them way too small. Going to Saguaro National Monument seemed a bit redundant by now, as we seemed to be surrounded by saguaro already, but the drive through Saguaro National Monument did get us closer to the plants and they were denser there as well. Saguaro National Monument has two sections: the Tucson Mountain section west of Tucson (which has a more dense growth--this was the section we went through) and the Rincon section east of Tucson (which has a better Visitors Center). We even worked up enough energy to walk the nature trail (a half mile, thirty minutes). Seeing all these fantastic cacti, I was reminded of Lawrence Watt-Evans's 'Why I Left Harry's All-Night Hamburgers,' in which someone asks the main character if he wants to travel to strange worlds and see weird plants and weirder animals. Yes? Well, he points out, the earth is full of weird plants and weirder animals. See Earth first!
At 1:30 PM we started back for Tucson, planning to do some errands. Mark wanted a haircut and we wanted to get spare batteries for his camera and more film. We drove east on Speedway Boulevard (one of the main roads) and found a barber shop. While Mark was getting his haircut, I looked through the newspaper there. GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS was playing just down the road at 3 PM and we'd been wanting to see that. So after the haircut, we went to that. Great movie, but I'm not going to review it here, as it was only circumstantially part of our trip. (Oh, haircuts are cheaper in Tucson than in New Jersey.)
Dinner was at a Po Folks we spotted on the way. We both had the allyou -can-eat vegetables for $4.99, and I had the iced tea in a mason jar (their trademark). For dessert, Mark had the dirt cup. It's a cheap plastic cup shaped like a flower pot with chocolate pudding topped by a layer of crushed Oreo cookie, and with a gummy worm on top. Then we stopped at a grocery where we picked up graham crackers, dried fruit, and one of the two batteries we wanted. So we accomplished half our errands--not easy to do when you have three errands.
The economy in Tucson must be about the same as elsewhere. We saw several people at major intersections holding up signs that said, 'Temporarily homeless--will work for food' or something like that. The Sun Belt may be the growing area, but even here there are problems.
Mileage today: 63 miles. |
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