A Day As Long as the Cactuses (Cacti?) Are Tall

Once again, we're on the road visiting National Park sites and a bunch of random stuff in between. This time we're heading to Arizona (and eventually New Mexico, Colorado and Utah) with our friends Matt and Jen and our day started bright and early. The 6 AM direct flight seemed like a good idea when we booked but the early wake-up call wasn't much fun when the day arrived. Thankfully everything went smoothly and we landed in Phoenix at 7:30 local time (MST). After loading up at Walmart and eating at a Cracker Barrel, we headed to our first stop: Tombstone, AZ.

Pulling up, it was pretty much like you'd picture. It was one of those places that does have the history and education but is mostly a giant tourist trap complete with cowboys on the dirt street yelling at you to try the ice cream (which incidentally is exactly how I pictured the Old West). Of course, we had to see the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral reenactment and the historama that goes with it. The historama was narrated by Vincent Price so you know it was modern. The reenactment was decent but some actors were clearly into it more than others. All in all in was a good first stop (except for the yellow jackets which were everywhere, probably on account of the ice cream the cowboys were hawking).

We then drove back toward Tucson which is where we were staying for the night. At this point we had been going for 15 hours but since we wanted to take advantage of the remaining daylight, we stopped at Saguaro National Park. It was a small park (the road was an 8-mile loop) where the main attraction was the Saguaro cactus. I guess there used to be a lot more but then a cold snap decades ago killed a bunch and the cattle grazing didn't allow new ones to grow. They started to fix that in the 70's and now there are a lot of them out there. It was pretty neat to see although once you've seen 100 cactuses (or cacti), you've seen them all. On the plus side, it was another stamp (and Jen's first) and Jess got to leave some of her artwork for someone to find. There were a bunch of good views (and given that's it close to some subdivisions, some mediocre views) and definitely worth the stop. I think we all enjoyed it, though it's possible the highlight for Jen was figuring out her selfie stick.

A quick dinner later, we were at our hotel and heading to bed early. I think we were all asleep by about 9 PM local time which was good because the next day wasn't going to be any less busy...

As they say in Saguaro, . Note: the bicyclists do this.