Rideout A Day Trip To Tombstone, Arizona

As some of you may have read in a previous ride report I posted, Steve, Russell, and I rode down to Tombstone in early November and spent a couple of nights there. Well, during that trip, Russell got his hands (more like lips) on a soda called "Doc Holliday" and found himself hooked. He brought a case of it home with him but ran out lickety-split. So we planned a day trip to round up some more. (Any excuse for a ride, right?) And today was restocking day!

My Street Glide was up next in the ride queue which was good as it's the bike I'd choose to ride to Tombstone anyway. Six of us met up at the leisurely hour of 10:00am to depart for "The Town to Tough to Die". Three other ride buddies had planned to join us but they were all sick. People are dropping like flies with colds and flu here these days.



Part of why we chose 10:00am for our departure time was so we'd arrive right about lunchtime. Once parked we made a beeline for the Longhorn Restaurant. No pictures of that place this time around. But we did see Tombstone's Christmas tree on the way to lunch!



Even cowboys love Snoopy! These two were leaned up against a local bar, The Four Deuces.



As I mentioned, our primary excuse, er, reason for riding to Tombstone was to fill Russell's saddlebags up with "Doc Holliday" soda. Russell absolutely LOVES Dr. Pepper soda and the Doc Holliday is basically like a cross between Dr. Pepper and Cherry Coke. It's made by a woman who lives in southern Arizona and works for the Pepsi corporation, and it's only available for sale in several places--someplace in Phoenix, in Sierra Vista (10 miles or so from Tombstone) and in Tombstone. And of those three, Tombstone is the only place worth riding to!

When we stayed in Tombstone in November, Russell got a case of Doc from the bartender at the Tombstone Brewing Co. She had an extra one in the back that she was willing to part with. Today on the way to lunch he stopped in a couple of places along Allen Street, Tombstone's main street, but no one carried it. So we went back to the brewery.



Here's Steve with Russell's soda haul. That's another of our riding buddies, Ron, in the background. If you can't tell, he's our token BMW ride buddy. He's in the photo above, too, in his Rev It suit.



The stockings were hung by the bar with care.



See that Christmas tree in the corner of the previous photo? Upon closer inspection I found that it was made from beer cans!



We always see the teams pulling the stagecoaches whenever we go to Tombstone but today we looked out the window of a shop we were in and saw two horses and riders just cruising up the street. Here they are, stopped to chat with one of the stagecoach drivers.



On the way to the brewery, we stopped into the hat shop where Steve bought my birthday present on our last visit--a beautiful Stetson. (I get it tomorrow for my birthday. Yep, been waiting 6 weeks for it!) Well, this time around, Russell found himself buying a new cowboy hat, a beautiful gray Resistol (color name -- Granite). He put that thing on his head and all of us nearly in unison said, "Buy it!" It really does look terrific on him. I totally forgot to snap a photo in the shop but had him send me one once he got it home. Getting it home was a trick in and of itself. Those hat boxes are BIG! When Steve and I arrived home, I texted him to see if the hat made it home ok (it did) and to see if he'd send me a photo of the hat with him in it. He did.



The ride back to Tucson was beautiful. It was chilly on the ride (high 50ºs) down to Tombstone but it warmed up significantly by the time we hit the trail for home. Here's the weather as we pulled into the garage.



Our total trip was 191 miles. The ride from Tucson to Tombstone is one of our favorite routes and I suspect we'll do it again soon. Probably just as soon as Russell drinks through his three cases of Doc Holliday!