Travels in a Tin Can

was Disney with guns, hairier faces...and worse acting. The tourist bit of town
is very small, just one main road really, but offers a lot of entertainment
options and good value for money. Us being us we wanted to see everything,
so went straight to the tourist information office for advice. We also went to
pick up a free gift, for which we had a coupon, but that turned out to be a
postcard illustrated with four historic buildings – yep, definitely savvy.
We soon discovered that the main attraction was re-enactments of the
infamous shoot out, performed by two different companies, but that the time of
our visit would mean we could only see one. The decision of which to see was
relatively easy - one show is performed in the OK Corral, is better publicized
and includes entry to other attractions, the other is just a gunfight performed in
a dusty side street. Publicity really works.
Once we had purchased our tickets for the gunfight - due to commence
a couple of hours later - we took a stage coach ride round town, pulled by two
huge horses with the cute, but unlikely, names of Butch and Buddy. Our driver
provided a surprisingly eloquent narrative given his 'rough cowboy'
appearance, which was full of fascinating detail about the town's past. We
then visited the headquarters of the Tombstone newspaper, a fairly
uninspiring museum but free with our tickets for the gunfight. Here we also
picked up complimentary souvenir editions of the newspapers produced in
Earp's era, full of detail and images of the day. And now sitting unread in a
box somewhere.
We still had time to kill before the re-enactment, our expected highlight,
so popped into the Birdcage Theatre, a saloon and poker den where 'ladies of
the night' sat suspended from the ceiling in cages like oversized budgies