Merry Christmas

click the pics

It's hard to tell from this picture, but it was 28° this morning and the truck and the camper were covered in frost. Fortunately its supposed to be 60 by lunchtime.

Merry Christmas. I hope everyone is having the best Christmas ever. I'm having a nice Christmas, or at least it's as nice as a Christmas can be when you're away from your family.

I didn't do anything today, other than made myself a nice dinner with the food I bought at Walmart a few days back. But other than doing that, I stayed home, in my pajamas,  sweat-pants, assuming everything is closed so there wouldn't be anything to see or do.

I used to think the same thing about the day after Christmas, after all you would think everybody would be resting up from the Christmas holidays, but I remember spending Christmas at Ben Avery gun range near Phoenix, and the day after Christmas the place was absolutely packed with people who couldn't wait to shoot their brand-new guns. And of course if you're driving through a neighborhood the day after Christmas you would have to pay extra attention to all the kids riding around on their brand-new bicycles.

This got me to wondering if I go visit the Sandhill cranes at Whitewater Draw next Wednesday would there be a lot of people there trying out there brand-new cameras? I guess it's possible, but unlike a gun, you can shoot your brand-new camera in the backyard.

I got really lucky night before last taking pictures downtown. It was very cloudy and it was getting dark so the lighting was fantastic, it almost seemed like I couldn't take a bad picture the lighting was so good. So I ended up with enough pictures for this blog post also.

Tombstone city Park with Christmas decorations.

The mean streets of Tombstone. The town too tough to die.

It's a little too chilly at night to be doing any outdoor dining.

It's getting harder and harder to find a tough, weather beaten, cowboy gunslinger, that doesn't have a cell phone in his hand...I notice he dials with his trigger finger.

This two foot tall statue is made out of wire. Who makes statues out of wire? Who has the talent to make things out of wire? What art school teaches you how to make statues out of wire? It's beautiful but who even thinks of such a thing?

I know this picture is to dark but this is how dark it was when I was walking out of town the other night. The town gets pretty spooky when the sun goes down and you're the only one walking down these streets. you start thinking of all the men that were shot down in this street right where you're walking

And if you stop and listen you can hear the hollow sound of boots on the wooden sidewalk, the sharp pop of gunfire, and see the spreading pool of blood slowly soaking into the dirt street.

I've never been in Tombstone when it's this dark before,  and I'm not sure if I want to again. But the worst is yet to come, now I have to walk right past the old county courthouse and the gallows that still creaks in the wind as if a body was hanging on it slowly swinging from the hangman's noose.

But there's no way around it, I've got to walk right past the deserted courthouse to get back to the camper...at least I hope the courthouse is deserted. I would hate to have to witness a 100 year old hanging that happens every night when the streets of Tombstone are dark, and only the fall of the judge's gavel and the screams of the condemned echo in the halls of the courthouse.