Day 11: The ride to Tombstone

Finally a glorious, glorious day of riding. We went south on Route 83 over the Santa Cruz mountain range, then east on Route 82 over something called the San Pedro Riparian.  There was nearly 4000 feet of climbing but reasonably comfortable grades (3-7%) and although it was quite cold, the sun was shining.  For the first time we could appreciate the beauty of Arizona.    

The ride was 73 miles and ended up in an RV park just outside Tombstone.  Sadly, I quickly realized that our accommodations, often very sketchy on this trip, were the worst thus far.  Because Bubba let his trip get so big (it was originally planned for 15 riders) he has been dashing around madly trying to rework the logistics for the 35 riders he actually has.  In this place we were supposed to stay in small cabins but there are not enough of them so he put the overflow into an empty double wide and a non-operating pizza restaurant.  We got the pizza place and it was ghastly.  Smelled terrible, , very crowded with the number of mattresses in there,  old machinery and cooking things everywhere. Exhausted from my ride I looked around and collapsed into a puddle of weeping misery.  All of the people who had been put in the building were fuming-- some went to a hotel (since the first night in Catalina we have lost several people every night to hotels) one couple insisted that their tent be set up outside, and John went to look for a light bulb for the bathroom.   In this quest he learned that there was no electricity and no heat in the building and was offered a real room above the "office".  He reappeared, said"get your mattress and your suitcase quick" and we rushed off to lay claim to the new space.  So we spent the night with light, heat, a bathroom, a place to charge everything.  Pure luxury.

Possibly in an effort to distract his riders from their temporary home, Bubba decked us out with cowboy hats, bandannas and plastic sheriff stars and got the Tombstone Trolley to take us into town.  There we watched a "gunfight" -- really 30 minutes of comic skits which were somewhat amusing although we were all very cold on metal bleachers.  Then it was off to "Big Nose Kate's Saloon" where we had pizza and listened to a singer who was so good, singing mostly Willie Nelson songs, that we thought for some time he was lip synching.  Finally we were loaded back on the trolley and taken for a "ghost tour" but I was so exhausted that I spent most of it asleep.