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thehefnerI checked into a hostel in Phoenix, AZ, my plan to rest in and check my LJ was waylaid when I discovered that my bottle of Pepto Bismol had exploded.
Of all the toiletries to pop open and spill, it had to be the one that would add a fine coat of bright pink over my toothbrush, toothpaste, other toothpaste, hand moisturizer, facial moisturizer, facial cleanser, floss, another (empty) container of floss, Rogaine, vitamins, vitamin C lozenges, Listerine, acid reflux medication, old-man-bladder medication, ginko biloba, massage oil, lube, and a flash drive. All doused with thick pink goo that steadfastly resisted mere rinsing techniques.
I think between occupying the bathroom sink for an hour and then (not entirely-successfully) fighting back sobs in the middle of the night, thinking about my cat, I was pretty much the worst hostel-mate of all time.
Continuing Southeast toward Tuscon along HWY 79, I pulled over at a POI near Florence, to visit the spot where Tom Mix died.
I confess, I never heard of the great cowboy actor from the Golden Age of Hollywood until I saw the film TOMBSTONE, where narrator Robert Mitchum ended the film talking about how Mix was in attendance at Wyatt Earp's funeral. The final words spoken before the credits rolled were Mitchum matter-of-factly stating, "Tom Mix wept."
Even still, I've never seen a Tom Mix film. Like Gene Autry and Roy Rogers, he's an icon of the genre, more known by name than for any of his actual films. But I still have a personal connection to the man nonetheless, as I met and befriended his granddaughter,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ernmissprism (that is your relation, right?). It was thinking of her that I stopped and took these paltry photos, the plaque drowned in shadow by the unaccommodating sun.
I wouldn't have done it otherwise. I would have felt phony, unlike those white-haired couples in their RVs and the grizzled gray bikers, the other sightseers in the gully known as the Tom Mix Wash. I'm certain they've actually seen (and probably even love) his films. These aging tourists still carried on a legacy of cinema that was dying out with generations like mine, and they wanted to snap photos and pay their respects. But then again, so did I. To those people, he was the "King of the Cowboys." But to me, he was someone who helped give me a friend.
Transferring onto US-10, Tuscon very nearby, hills started to emerge. And with them, came cacti.
I'd never actually seen wild cacti before. It made me feel like I was in a Road Runner cartoon.
Tuscon itself turned out to be a bust. I only went to partake of a world-renowned Mexican restaurant. The joint was a hot tip by Greg, my old comic shop boss, who once stayed in Tuscon an extra day just to dine there at least twice more. So when I discovered that it was closed on frickin' Mondays, which it was that day, I was so frustrated that I petulantly said fuck-you to Tuscon as a whole and carried onward.
And yet, I was tired of driving. So frickin' tired. I just wanted to see something before I went to Tombstone. The only POI within the vicinity was Colossal Cave, an old limestone cavern once used by train robbers. I shouldn't have gone there at all. I only had two hours to kill, and if you're gonna blow the cash at a place like Colossal Cave, you should make the most of it. Notice I don't even have pictures beyond these two:
Actually, the reason I don't have any other pictures is because I actually met a cute girl in my tour who proceeded to take the majority of the shots, then promised to send me the photos. She never did.
She was just yet another one of those bittersweet encounters on the road: a person I meet, we hit it off, and then never speak to one another again. I started to feel very tired of that process. I wanted to actually make friends, people who I could keep in contact with via Facebook, at least. And if I couldn't have that, then I just wanted to get back in my rolling metal canister and drive on without having my hopes raised in the first place. I don't have time for things like that. Not when I have places to be.
Hell, I just barely made it to Tombstone before the sun began to set. Which, in retrospect, is the best time to see Tombstone.
I sat down in a near-empty theatre to watch HISTORAMA, a presentation on Tombstone's history performed by a rickety animatronic display that was clearly made in 1964. (Photos not mine, clearly)
As you can imagine, the presentation's quality was smack-dab between "Disney Imagineer" and "4th Grade Science Fair Presentation," but the narration alone was worth it. Because the 25-minute presentation was narrated by that great cowboy actor, Vincent Price.
... No, seriously, it was 25 minutes of Vincent Price reading the history of Tombstone. I don't care if it's completely nonsensical, the presence of a vocal performance by Vincent "Shrunken Head Apple Kit" Price instantly means TICKET=BOUGHT.
The HISTORAMA! building (it needed an exclamation point) let right into the OK Corral itself, which by that point was pleasantly desolate.
Surrounding the Corral itself were buildings both old and made to look old, along with plaques of historical tidbits. One room was preserved to resemble a prostitute's quarters, filled with antiques like small bottles of laudanum, accompanied by lurid prosti-trivia like, "'Soiled Doves' often took laudanum to deal with the shame and misery of their profession, with many consuming fatal overdoses to end their wretched existence." I'm paraphrasing, but not exaggerating.
Then there was the Corral itself. Now, I understand that if they kept it totally preserved as it was, the reaction anyone would get upon seeing a patch of fenced-in dirt is a big ol' "That's it?" So understandably, they had to spice it up a bit with talking animatronic figures of the Earps, Doc Holliday, the Clantons, and so on.
It all might have looked rather impressive if they weren't showing serious signs of age, being outside for over forty years. The clothes were ratty and wilted, the rubber faces faded like toys that had been out in the sun too long. But oddest of all were the shoes, all of their shoes, the toes curling Wicked-Witch-of-the-East-style upward into goblin-boots.
Whether you see him as a vigilant hero or a grandstanding murderer, no one can argue that Wyatt Earp deserves better than this.
Everything else in Tombstone was closing up by this point, as the mountains glowed in the sunset. I knew I'd only be missing kitsch shops selling manufactured history. It was all sort of theme-park phony compared to places like Oatman. Yes, they play up their old-west-ness, but with them, it feels more about who they are, not who they were. Not like Tombstone.
While there was still light, I managed to find two spots of actual history. First, the grand old courthouse...
... followed by the perfect place to end one's journey in Tombstone: Boot Hill Cemetery. This, according to ROAD TRIP USA, actually is the real thing, for all its rhyming markers and quirky epitaphs.
But like any other tourist, I took special note of Boot Hill's most famous residents: the three men killed in the Gunfight at the OK Corral.
I forget where I spent the night. Presumably in a rest area, since by these pictures I was clearly bunking in the minivan. Again, I tried and failed to capture the snug homeyness of my setup back there: the curtains pulled up, surrounded by luggage and supplies on all sides, and curled up under tons of blankets.
I guess it's one of those private joys I'll never quite be able to convey, short of photographic my own tired, scruffy, greasy, unwashed contentment:
Of all the toiletries to pop open and spill, it had to be the one that would add a fine coat of bright pink over my toothbrush, toothpaste, other toothpaste, hand moisturizer, facial moisturizer, facial cleanser, floss, another (empty) container of floss, Rogaine, vitamins, vitamin C lozenges, Listerine, acid reflux medication, old-man-bladder medication, ginko biloba, massage oil, lube, and a flash drive. All doused with thick pink goo that steadfastly resisted mere rinsing techniques.
I think between occupying the bathroom sink for an hour and then (not entirely-successfully) fighting back sobs in the middle of the night, thinking about my cat, I was pretty much the worst hostel-mate of all time.
Continuing Southeast toward Tuscon along HWY 79, I pulled over at a POI near Florence, to visit the spot where Tom Mix died.
I confess, I never heard of the great cowboy actor from the Golden Age of Hollywood until I saw the film TOMBSTONE, where narrator Robert Mitchum ended the film talking about how Mix was in attendance at Wyatt Earp's funeral. The final words spoken before the credits rolled were Mitchum matter-of-factly stating, "Tom Mix wept."
Even still, I've never seen a Tom Mix film. Like Gene Autry and Roy Rogers, he's an icon of the genre, more known by name than for any of his actual films. But I still have a personal connection to the man nonetheless, as I met and befriended his granddaughter,
ernmissprism (that is your relation, right?). It was thinking of her that I stopped and took these paltry photos, the plaque drowned in shadow by the unaccommodating sun. I wouldn't have done it otherwise. I would have felt phony, unlike those white-haired couples in their RVs and the grizzled gray bikers, the other sightseers in the gully known as the Tom Mix Wash. I'm certain they've actually seen (and probably even love) his films. These aging tourists still carried on a legacy of cinema that was dying out with generations like mine, and they wanted to snap photos and pay their respects. But then again, so did I. To those people, he was the "King of the Cowboys." But to me, he was someone who helped give me a friend.
Transferring onto US-10, Tuscon very nearby, hills started to emerge. And with them, came cacti.
I'd never actually seen wild cacti before. It made me feel like I was in a Road Runner cartoon.
Tuscon itself turned out to be a bust. I only went to partake of a world-renowned Mexican restaurant. The joint was a hot tip by Greg, my old comic shop boss, who once stayed in Tuscon an extra day just to dine there at least twice more. So when I discovered that it was closed on frickin' Mondays, which it was that day, I was so frustrated that I petulantly said fuck-you to Tuscon as a whole and carried onward.
And yet, I was tired of driving. So frickin' tired. I just wanted to see something before I went to Tombstone. The only POI within the vicinity was Colossal Cave, an old limestone cavern once used by train robbers. I shouldn't have gone there at all. I only had two hours to kill, and if you're gonna blow the cash at a place like Colossal Cave, you should make the most of it. Notice I don't even have pictures beyond these two:
Actually, the reason I don't have any other pictures is because I actually met a cute girl in my tour who proceeded to take the majority of the shots, then promised to send me the photos. She never did.
She was just yet another one of those bittersweet encounters on the road: a person I meet, we hit it off, and then never speak to one another again. I started to feel very tired of that process. I wanted to actually make friends, people who I could keep in contact with via Facebook, at least. And if I couldn't have that, then I just wanted to get back in my rolling metal canister and drive on without having my hopes raised in the first place. I don't have time for things like that. Not when I have places to be.
Hell, I just barely made it to Tombstone before the sun began to set. Which, in retrospect, is the best time to see Tombstone.
I sat down in a near-empty theatre to watch HISTORAMA, a presentation on Tombstone's history performed by a rickety animatronic display that was clearly made in 1964. (Photos not mine, clearly)
As you can imagine, the presentation's quality was smack-dab between "Disney Imagineer" and "4th Grade Science Fair Presentation," but the narration alone was worth it. Because the 25-minute presentation was narrated by that great cowboy actor, Vincent Price.
... No, seriously, it was 25 minutes of Vincent Price reading the history of Tombstone. I don't care if it's completely nonsensical, the presence of a vocal performance by Vincent "Shrunken Head Apple Kit" Price instantly means TICKET=BOUGHT.
The HISTORAMA! building (it needed an exclamation point) let right into the OK Corral itself, which by that point was pleasantly desolate.
Surrounding the Corral itself were buildings both old and made to look old, along with plaques of historical tidbits. One room was preserved to resemble a prostitute's quarters, filled with antiques like small bottles of laudanum, accompanied by lurid prosti-trivia like, "'Soiled Doves' often took laudanum to deal with the shame and misery of their profession, with many consuming fatal overdoses to end their wretched existence." I'm paraphrasing, but not exaggerating.
Then there was the Corral itself. Now, I understand that if they kept it totally preserved as it was, the reaction anyone would get upon seeing a patch of fenced-in dirt is a big ol' "That's it?" So understandably, they had to spice it up a bit with talking animatronic figures of the Earps, Doc Holliday, the Clantons, and so on.
It all might have looked rather impressive if they weren't showing serious signs of age, being outside for over forty years. The clothes were ratty and wilted, the rubber faces faded like toys that had been out in the sun too long. But oddest of all were the shoes, all of their shoes, the toes curling Wicked-Witch-of-the-East-style upward into goblin-boots.
Whether you see him as a vigilant hero or a grandstanding murderer, no one can argue that Wyatt Earp deserves better than this.
Everything else in Tombstone was closing up by this point, as the mountains glowed in the sunset. I knew I'd only be missing kitsch shops selling manufactured history. It was all sort of theme-park phony compared to places like Oatman. Yes, they play up their old-west-ness, but with them, it feels more about who they are, not who they were. Not like Tombstone.
While there was still light, I managed to find two spots of actual history. First, the grand old courthouse...
... followed by the perfect place to end one's journey in Tombstone: Boot Hill Cemetery. This, according to ROAD TRIP USA, actually is the real thing, for all its rhyming markers and quirky epitaphs.
But like any other tourist, I took special note of Boot Hill's most famous residents: the three men killed in the Gunfight at the OK Corral.
I forget where I spent the night. Presumably in a rest area, since by these pictures I was clearly bunking in the minivan. Again, I tried and failed to capture the snug homeyness of my setup back there: the curtains pulled up, surrounded by luggage and supplies on all sides, and curled up under tons of blankets.
I guess it's one of those private joys I'll never quite be able to convey, short of photographic my own tired, scruffy, greasy, unwashed contentment:
