Tag Archives: Tombstone

Leaving Mesa Regal

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The time has flown by this winter, probably because we were late arriving in Arizona in the fall. The last weeks were filled with a bit of pickleball and a whole lot of eating out with friends before saying goodbyes. I will really miss all those people who have become an integral part of our lives. But I am anxious to get back to my efficient, well equipped kitchen in Ontario.  It’s been over a month since I’ve had a properly working fridge, which meant we ate out too much.

We left Mesa Regal at noon on April 1st, after our motorhome played a trick on us – the leveling Jacks refused to rise up off the ground. It took about an hour before the problem was solved with an electric drill being used to manually lift them to their traveling position. When we finally got the bike loaded into the trailer, said our final goodbyes and started off, we realized that when we’d parked and covered the car in its storage spot, we’d left the GPS in it! Fortunately it was just a few streets away so we swung by, uncovered the car, retrieved the GPS and re-covered the car. We were already tired! Some lunch helped, and then we were on our way.

By 4:00 we were almost at the turn off for Tombstone. We decided to stop there for the night, and spend part of the next day seeing some of the things we missed the last time we visited that old city. We found a spot in the Stampede RV Park, within walking distance of all the attractions. In the morning, after breakfast served in the park’s Coach Stop, we took the trolley tour,

Former County Court House (Museum now)
Former home of Wyatt Earp

witnessed a comedy version of the notorious gunfights common in the old west

and looked around the Rose Museum, where the world’s largest rose is huge and presently blooming.

The trunk of the Rose Tree
Branches spread over a well-supported trellis
The small white blosoms

A big thanks goes out to Sue in the RV Park office who gave us a great summary of what to find and where.There are still a few more sites to see, but at 1:00 we knew if we were going to get out of Arizona before the day was out, we had to get back on the road.

We made it to Las Cruces, New Mexico before it was too dark, and stayed at the Coachlight Motel & RV Park.

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A Detour to Tombstone, Arizona

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We were excited to cross the Arizona border at 11:00 am on Friday. We still had five hours of driving to go before we’d reach Mesa, but we expected we’d at least get to Tucson before calling it a day. However, the billboards along the highway were calling us to Tombstone, so we had to heed the call.

We took the exit off Hwy. 10 into Benson, and then took Hwy. 80, south to Tombstone, where we spent a few hours living in a time-warp, walking the plank sidewalks amongst cowboys, gunslingers and stage coaches.

Allan St. Tombstone

Looking down Allan St., downtown Tombstone, AZ

Bird Cage Theatre

Bird Cage Theatre

Stage Coach

Stage Coach on Allan St.

We took in the re-enactment of the famous shootout at OK Corral involving Wyatt Earp, Doc Holiday and the Clanton and McLaury gangs.

OK Corral Monument

The story

Gunfight re-enactment

Gunfight re-enactment

We sat through a film and histogram to learn about the development of Tombstone in 1880 during the silver mining rush, and its struggles to survive in one form or another over the next two centuries. The sun began to set and the temperatures began to drop when we climbed back into the motor home after everything closed up at 5:00 pm. Even though Benson was further north, the elevation was much lower, so we decided that a campsite back there might be more comfortable. At 6:00 pm we found a Wendy’s for a quick dinner, but went to the hardware store in the same mall first to pick up a couple of items. We were too late. What stores close up at 6:00 pm on a Friday night? Apparently in Benson it’s common practice. We looked up the RV Resorts in the area and drove to the closest and highest recommended one in the Good Sam Directory, but the office was already closed. On we went to another. The office there was closed too, but the owner saw us come in and told us where to park before he left us to return to the karaoke. With some difficulty and a little tension, because of the darkness and the need to back up to get into a spot, we got settled in for the night. We were exhausted and hit the sheet early. The furnace, although we thought we had the problem solved earlier, wasn’t working properly again. This meant having to get up during the night to manually turn it on and off by connecting the wires. But we were glad that we’d made the trip to Tombstone, and if it hadn’t been for the cold weather we might have stayed another day. There was so much more that we hadn’t seen.

By 12:30 pm on Saturday we were in Mesa. Before going to the RV Resort we hoped to get the motor home and the bike washed. We had seen many signs along the highway advertising RV washes, but in Mesa we could find none. Instead, Jim backed the bike into a car wash so we could get the grease and grime off of it at least to make it ride-able. We managed to get most of the dirt off the back of the RV too. At 5:15 we pulled into Mesa Regal RV Resort and got our spot. Set up and dinner was all that we managed before bedtime.

Sunday was devoted to “nesting”: finding our way around town to purchase some necessities like a phone SIM card and a new thermostat for the furnace; catching up on a week’s worth of laundry. On the way to the Laundromat, just a couple hundred feet from “home”, we noticed the parking lot of the main building was rapidly filling up with cars.  We asked what was going on and were told that there was a choir performing in the Regal Ballroom. We deposited our laundry into the washers and then went to see just what all the fuss was about. On the stage was a ninety member choir, accompanied by a twenty-five piece orchestra. We were thoroughly entertained with beautiful Christmas music, mostly unique arrangements of the traditional Christmas Carols. The hall was packed. It looks like it’s going to be a beautiful Christmas here, despite not being white.