AND SO IT GOES...........

Last week I took it upon myself to catch the flu. Nothing much to say about that really except that with my usual sense of awful timing, this past weekend was my birthday and my husband had booked a trip for us to go to Arizona for a long weekend. Now this time last year I opted to have an emergency appendectomy in the week before my birthday so you can understand my husbands less than enthusiastic response to me doing a repeat performance of the dying swan to celebrate my special day. He tends to be one of these guys who carries on regardless and doesn't see why anyone else should feel any different so as I wasn't on life-support or missing any limbs, on Friday we went off to the airport. I was feeling about as wobbly as a new born foal but I made the trip without throwing up on anyone (just) and I must admit, getting out of the city is always good medicine for me. By the time we arrived I was pretty much finished for the day but we were staying in a beautiful little hotel


so lounging around in our room wasn't too much of a hardship.
The next morning I awoke to find these two Mockingbirds have a face-off outside our room. It was so funny to watch them standing face to face and jumping up and down on the spot. It went on long enough for me to watch them, go back into my room and get my camera and come back out and snap off a couple of pictures!


Before I had got sick I had told my husband that the one thing I really wanted to do whilst staying in Tuscon was to visit Tombstone. I know, it is a really touristy thing to do but as a non-American, the classic image of America when growing up is 'the wild west' and what could be wilder than the Earp brothers and Doc Holliday? I just had to do it! As the trip would involve mainly sitting in a car and then strolling along a short street we decided to stick with the plan and just be careful that I didn't sneeze or cough on anyone. And yes, Tombstone was everything I hoped it would be :)


Mules, horses, stagecoaches and wagons and everyone strolling around in period outfits. I felt eight years old all over again! It is so cool to go somewhere that has a history so utterly different from the history I grew up with in England.


We strolled along the main street, paid a visit to the Birdcage Theatre and even took a tour of the town in a covered wagon! It was a real step back in time. I also discovered that the big shoot-out at the OK Corral didn't happen in the OK Corral at all but in a little alley way behind the corral! That was why the double-barreled shotgun proved so lethal, you can't really avoid much of the shot when you are in a ten foot wide alley - Ouch!!


They are hard to see but on the left hand side of this picture are Leroy and Tyrone, the two huge black Percherons who pulled our covered wagon round town at a wonderfully sedate and stately pace.


By this time I was beginning to flag so we made our way back to the car. You can see from the pictures that the weather wasn't being entirely what we had hoped for in the desert and sure enough as we left Tombstone the sky got darker and darker. There were tiny little rain storms blowing around among the mountains and it made for some very dramatic scenery on our drive back to Tuscon.


These wide open spaces are definitely having a good effect, I am certainly starting to feel more like my old self. Just to finish my day off on the right note, we stopped of at a traditional belt and holster makers shop and when he discovered I used to ride horses, the owner tried to sell me one of his horses! It is funny how odd random things cheer you up when you are feeling below par - this dying swan is not done yet!!


Photo Credits - CJT