Helldorado Days in Tombstone

I don't think I've ever been to Helldorado Days in Tombstone.  I tend to avoid these fake festivals in that town.  But today Susan invited me to ride with her in her 1978 Corvette.  Having never ridden in a car like that. I agreed to go with her with her Thunder Vette Set club, ride to Tombstone and take part in the parade.

I began the day early and made two two-mile loops around the neighborhood with first the pups and then Sweetie and Zeke.  It was a crisp morning with temperatures in the low 60s.  (The sun now rises at 6:27am and sets at 5:44pm and that means most of my morning walks are in the dark.) I noticed a haze over the mountains once the sun was up.  Was that from the new wildfires near Prescott, Cochise, or even Estes Park, CO where the state's largest fire is now burning?  The haze lasted all day.

These Corvette owners are a devoted group. The club met at 8:45am in the Hobby Lobby parking lot, drove via a 12-car convoy to Tombstone.  The colorful line of Corvettes sailing over the hills and around the road's curves was fascinating to watch, like a centipede crawling on the ground.   Once in town, members dusted off their cars and then stood around until the 11:30am parade.  This is my second event with the club and the members are nice, but, like Susan, I'm too restless to just stand around for two hours I need to move around and explore.

I'm not good with small talk as I am not a car aficionada. I gladly joined Susan for a walk. We walked around old town and the waiting audience in that meantime, where I took some of my best photographs.    I'd rather walk around and explore!  We walked to the brewery and back, tracking 1.8 miles by the time we were back with the group.  We found a pretty English rose garden and a quirky yard decorated with orange pumpkins among all the other flora.  Even the home owner was dressed in orange pumpkin pants when she came toward us to chat.

Tombstone depends on tourism to survive. People come to Tombstone to relive the "wild West" days, dressing up in 1880 regalia.  Men wear their black and white ensemble and women dress up as colorful prostitutes in push-up bras and open cleavage. These festivals bring out the creativity.  Some people really get into the spirit.  My only complaint is that the parade was politicized by Trump flags and cut-outs by many of the people in the audience.

The car club was lined up early for the parade.  By the time we got going, it was close to 11:30am.  Susan gave me a bag of M&Ms to toss out to the kids in the audience.  I knew that one bag would not be enough.  There were a lot of kids waiting for candy to be thrown at them

The candy throwing turned out to be the best part of the parade.  I saw lots of boys up front, hoping that being closer to us passing cars meant getting more candy.  The younger kids and many girls were cut off by these greedy boys.  I hate seeing kids bully each other like that, and the young ones alraways get cut out.  I saw many disappointed faces as we slowly drove down the main road.  I told Susan the next time I get invited, I will make sure I have lots more bags of candy.  Throwing out candy to kids is more fun than having Trick-or-Treaters come by my door.  I may even pass out candy to little kids before the parade, so that the smaller kids get their share of the sweets as well.

In three minutes, we were done driving down main street.  All the car club members then drove back to Sierra Vista.  It was all done too soon.

Susan and I agreed to meet again at 3pm to walk the dogs down the river.  I only took Minnie and the pups.  There were too many cars parked at the casa, so we drove back to the Hereford Bridge to walk our four dogs south to the beaver dam.  Minnie was walking very stiffly but enjoyed her dips in the deeper sections.  We let the dogs romp around in the old beaver dam before walking back the way we came.

We spotted a cow and a calf on our return walk.  I leashed up the pups but they wanted to chase the cows, pulling me so strongly that I tripped and fell on the rocks, hitting my head behind my right ear against the rocks.  That momentarily knocked me out as I lay on the dry creek bed, with me waking up a few seconds later looking close-up to rocks.  That fall hurt and gave me an instant headache, but there were no lacerations.  I do have a bruise behind my right ear.

The pups were oblivious to what they had caused, running back to us when the cows ran off.  My head hurt the rest of the day, though.

I'm going to have to spend more time with more leash training, taking the pups separately as together they are pure hellions.

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