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Today we ventured back toward Tombstone. I had noticed on the map that there was a site along the way labeled Fairbank Ghost town. We almost missed it as there was only one sign pointing toward a parking lot. We stopped and walked through the trees into the old town site. There was not much left but it was interesting to read that Fairbank used to be the central town with all of the rail lines passing through. At its height there were 15,000 people living in there and now there are only a few buildings remaining. There was an 800 metre trail that lead back to the Fairbank cemetery so we thought we would check it out. I had read the night before about the Boot Hill Cemetery where a lot of the Tombstone outlaws were buried and there was a lot of criticism about how cheesy it looked and that it was more likely a tourist trap than the actual graves of the Tombstone folk. The markers were all painted signs on metal posts over neat organized piles of rocks. When we made it to the Fairbank cemetery it was on top of a hill surrounded by mountains overlooking the valley. There were piles of rocks with no markers, piles of rocks with what used to be wooden crosses lying in a pile on top and piles of rocks with wooden crosses still standing. Some of the graves had iron fencing around them and there were a couple with brick fences that had mostly fallen down. Most of these graves dated back to 1880 or earlier so it was really neat to see this "authentic" un-restored grave site. There were 3 graves there that actually had headstones that were dated from the early 1900's. We never made it to the Boot Hill cemetery and don't regret it for a second. We enjoyed a much more authentic and less "touristy" experience.

From there we headed into Tombstone. We were running behind but made it just in time for the 2pm shootout at the OK Corral re-enactment. The re-enactment took place in the same spot where the actual shootout took place. Actually right beside it as they have statue/mannequins of the folks involved in the shootout in the exact places they stood when the blasting began. The show was pretty good but a little confusing, I guess we will have to brush up on our Tombstone history or maybe just watch the movie Tombstone. After the show we wandered through town. There were some of the original buildings still standing but it was hard to figure out what was what as they were all tourist traps. One neat place we visited was the Epitaph. It is Arizona's longest running newspaper and it is still printed today. The tour was free and we got two copies of the newspaper printed the day after the shootout at the OK Corral. Actually, I am sure they were printed more recently than that but the content was from 1881. By this point in the day, Mira was pretty pooped and started to fall asleep in her stroller so we headed back to the RV.

We packed up and started heading toward Tucson. We had a horrible time trying to find a place to stay. The place I had looked up the day before we could not find and every other place in Tucson was 55+. We found a place half way between Tucson and Phoenix that seemed ok so we headed there. When we pulled up it was closed for remodeling…made me think of Wally World! We were not too disappointed that it was closed as they forgot to mention in the brochure that they were 3 miles from the state prison. We ended up driving back and forth up and down the highway searching for places and not having internet access made it that much more difficult. I ended up calling a 55+ resort and asked if we could stay overnight. He said no problem so we headed there. When we got there I went in to check in and he said you are 55 right? I thought he was being cheeky you know…wink, wink, nudge, nudge so I said yep. He continued to fill out the registration and asked for my drivers license. He wrote down my name, address, license number and then went to right down the birth date. I could see him struggling with the math when he lifted his head and said, you're not 55? So, we ended up not being able to stay there…rules are rules…LOLapparently I pass as 55… We spent the night at a truck stop and are pleased to say they had coffee ready for us in the morning and we saved $20….ahh the silver lining…