Tombstone, the town too tough to die

I have to admit I love the movie Tombstone, it’s a fun movie to watch and I remember going as a kid (okay teenager) to Tombstone, AZ and thinking it was ok, but not super exciting. After our recent Tombstone field trip I’m wondering if I was thinking of somewhere different.  I loved every moment of this recent Tombstone field trip and would love to go back again when the kids are older.

What can you expect on a Tombstone Field Trip?

There is a lot to do on your trip to Tombstone, AZ.  We primarily focused on the events related to the Shootout at the OK Corral, but there was a Victorian clothing museum I really wanted to go see, but I knew I would be the only member of my family who would find that interesting.  Going to a museum where you are the only person interested is torture, because your family spends the entire time letting you know how patient they are being.

Or maybe that’s just my kids.

We all really enjoyed seeing the reenactment of the gunfight at the OK Corral, and they also had a really cool “Historama,” which I’d show you pictures from but they don’t allow pictures during that show (it is amazingly cool, and I highly recommend going to it).  The live one they do, so I got to take pictures and I have a few short videos to show you from it.  One of the videos won’t upload onto my computer, so you’ll have to wait for that one.  This video is a monologue by Doc Holiday about his premonition………….

Doc Holiday waxing poetical

Afterwards we wandered around town and had fun poking our heads into the different stores and the bookstore, where I had a lot of fun talking with a local author and the bookstore owner about children’s history books and how hard it is to find a good one.  I’m still on a search to find a picture book about Tombstone, but there doesn’t seem to be one so far.  The best I’ve found is A Possum’s Wild West and the Gun Fight at the OK Corral, and it’s more of a 2nd/3rd grade early chapter book, than a picture book (for the activity we did with this book, check out Gunfight at the OK Corral).

Afterwards the kids had fun playing with some of the various things there, a cow roping exhibit and a “horse” to ride on.  I alternated between checking on them and reading some of the exhibits.

I learned about the theoretical origins of the phrase red light district, and interesting things about “the world’s oldest profession,” and about the area’s history in general.  It made me want to get a few books on the subject and read up more on it, but as you can imagine that is not all that uncommon.  Oh and I have a real hankerin’ to see Tombstone again soon.

But, all in all I can’t wait to come back to Tombstone with Jeff, and spend more time there, we didn’t get to go into the Victorian costume museum there, and that would have been SOOOOO cool.  Okay, I would have loved it and the kids would have been bored to tears.

What was everyone’s favorite for our Tombstone field trip?

I asked the kids later what was their favorite part.  Batman said the gun fight, Princess and Superman both agreed:

ICE CREAM!

Now head on over to All Things Beautiful and check out other geography and history posts.