Not snowing here!

We are in Mesa, Arizona now.  It is part of the Phoenix metro area.  It has been about 20C most days since we got here.  Once again the internet service is poor so I am in the library, writing the blog.

On our way here, we stopped at Benson which is on the east side of Tucson - maybe 30 -40 miles.  From there we went to Tombstone to see the OK Corral.  They have a re-enactment - in fact several- but we only saw one.  This was more than enough.  The two main things I learned was that the location of the shootout was not the OK Corral (this was dreamed up on a 1931 movie) but in a back lane and that the fight was rather pathetic.  Sort of like a fist fight gone wrong because they all had guns.  The re-enactment was kind of fun with some humour put into it but the historical accuracy must have suffered.  Anyway, here are some pictures of Tombstone (a tourist haven) and the fight.

He was Wyatt Earp.

                                                            He was Doc Holliday.

Once we got set up in Mesa in a resort called Towerpoint, we took a day trip out to Tortilla Flat, a few miles east of Mesa.  We had been out there years ago and mainly remembered that we drove and drove and then there was just a tiny general store.  We decided to make the drive again because we saw it featured in the tourist info.  The drive up was just lovely and we were surprised that neither of us had remembered how lovely this mountain desert country is.  Tortilla Flat has turned into a tourist place too (surprise!) and had live entertainment, saloons and a couple of places filled with souvenirs.  At least there was a little more to it than last time.  Oh! and we did eat delicious ice cream.

Tomorrow I am going to a quilt show in Tucson.  It is a day trip.  There is a guild here at the resort that seems to be very active.  I have signed up for a class in putting photos onto fabric.  There are a number of other classes running as well.  Many women leave their machines and equipment right in the sewing room.  The resort has provided a couple of  sewing machines and a long arm quilting machine as well as the large room.  It is a pretty impressive  set-up.  I joined the guild for $25 and for that I can go to any of the classes.

I should mention that I have been taking the photos with our little camera rather than the Canon because it takes way too long to upload pictures to the blog.  I guess the Canon would be OK if we had good internet but you know the story on that.