Thanksgiving is upon us and I have much to be thankful for. One of those is I get to laugh this time of year remembering the overnight trip to Tombstone in 2015:
I’ve always had a fascination with Tombstone. But in the dozen+ years living in Arizona, I had never been. The 3 1/2 hour drive was just far enough that it made for a rough day trip.
With the week off and without any plans so I decided that it would be a good time to finally go. I also decided to go way out of my comfort zone (I had never been to a Bed & Breakfast) and book a room at the converted Tombstone Bordello, an original building they moved just outside of town. What better way to feel the history, then to stay at an historic building!
It was already late afternoon when we arrived in town so went to go check in right away. We were greeted by a very nice lady, who proceeded to give us a tour of the building. Each room has its own name (can’t remember what ours was). And there is even a room featuring a bunch of creepy old dolls. On the completion of the tour, the owner informs us that she had just purchased the place and it would formally transition to her later in the week. She also let us know that she was not allowed to stay there yet, and we were going to be the only “guests” that night – that is except for a little old lady living in the sole ground floor room (whom we never saw or heard – her only presence was her walker would outside the room when she was there). It was at this time we were advised that the place is haunted, but they were “friendly”. It was also at this time my wife gave me the “stink eye”. My “history trip” now had a new theme.
After leaving the Bordello, we walked to town (I even had my cowboy boots on) to see the sights and were successfully “a la carted” by the town with an entry fee for anything you wanted to see (World’s Largest Rose Bush, OK Corral, Tombstone Courthouse, etc.). History apparently isn’t cheap.
I even paid to be downstairs in “The Bird Cage Theater”, considered by many to be the most haunted place in the state. It was around dusk and I was down there completely by myself (my wife wanted nothing to do with it) for nearly half an hour. It admittedly was a pretty cool time capsule of the era, but I saw nothing of note ghost-wise and made it out past the gift shop alive (or did I?).
The town closes up pretty early and it was completely dark by 5:30. So we headed back to the Bordello, walked passed the old lady’s walker outside her room (still not a sound) and headed to our room. And with no TV or WiFi, we turned in pretty early.
To our surprise, we were not murdered in our sleep (my wife didn’t sleep a wink). Nor did we get any visitations – “friendly” or other. And as soon as the light started to come through the window. the elbow in my side told me it was time to leave.
Then as we went to leave the door bolt wouldn’t budge to let us out…
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