Road Trip 2017 – Day 4 driving to New Mexico

So it's day 4 and we are up by the crack of 8-ish to begin our drive to Alamogordo, NM to see the White Sands National Monument. But first a detour. While talking the previous night both Bobbi and I remembered visiting Tombstone, AZ with our folks, so we thought it would be a blast to share that experience with Helen. It turns out it would only add about an hour to our drive, which didn't deem like a problem.

After driving to Tombstone, we thought we would be smart and take advantage of Bobbi's handicapped placard and get a parking spot right at the start of old town Tombstone. Woo hoo meant we didn't have far to walk in the heat. What a DEAL!! While I was walking through the town, memories of my teenage-hood came back and both Bobbi and I remembered that we had been here twice. The first time our folks refused to pay to go see the O.K. Corral, as money was tight. The second time, we were allowed to go in and realized it was not worth the hype. As they had bad cardboard cutouts that supposedly showed where everyone was standing and a couple of signs explaining what happened. All this in basically a dirt lot. YAWNNNNN. Needless to say we told Helen that is wasn't worth it and we should just see the town,

Now granted it has been a few years (40+) since we had been there and yes things would change. But come on!!! When we were there before there were only 2 gunfights I remember one free in the town and then the reenactment in the corral. Well today it's just a bit different, it felt like you couldn't walk more than 50 feet before some one was offering you a chance to step inside and witness a gunfight. If you want to do one I would suggest that you do the O.K. Corral only because they at least dressed up as the Tombstone Movie version of the Earps and Doc Holliday.

If you look at the pictures, you should be wondering the same thing as me. How can Tombstone, which is supposed to be back in the Clantons and Earp days, have another part on a side street called Old Tombstone? At least they should have called it Older Tombstone and guess what? They have their own shootout too and that fella sitting under the sign is more than happy to take your money to let you enjoy it.

Now any trip back to the old west wouldn't be complete without stepping into a saloon and having a Sarsaparilla. So we stepped into Big nose Kate's Saloon and found ourselves a spot at the bar and enjoyed.

After we finished our drinks we headed to the car to continue our journey to Alamogordo. As we prepared to climb into the car, I noticed that one of my feet was sticking to the ground, obviously I had stepped in some gum. So I look down and nope it isn't gum. The weather is so hot that the Tar from the road has stuck to my shoo and I have a huge chunk of asphalt attached to my shoe!! So the sole of my left shoe is now encased in asphalt, and no matter how much I scrape it, it doesn't come off. So only thing left to do is to drive and let it harden in hopes that I can pull it off later.

As we are driving we pass numerous sign's for Dwayne's Jerky or Dwayne's Nuts so on a whim we pull off and go hunt up Dwayne's. Obviously this isn't it.

Here it is and it's seems to be a popular stop

Don't know about the jerky, didn't seem to get much for the price, but the nuts are pretty good. So we bought a few and used the facilities before climbing back on the freeway. Also it was kinda cute that the bathrooms at Dwayne's have a sign that tells you to watch for rattlesnakes…
Then an hour later decided it was time to stop for gas and Dairy Queen and a chance for me to remove some of the large rocks my Tar shoe picked up at Dwayne's

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Back on the road we hit the White Sands National Monument about 90 minutes later where we stopped for just a few minutes to stamp our National Parks Passbook and get Bobbi hooked on doing the same (she bought a pass book too). Then to our hotel which had an awesome fish tank in the lobby at the Fairfield Inn & Suites Alamogordo

BTW the jelly fish are fake.

After a quick dinner at Johnny Corino's, which was next to the hotel. We went to our rooms to relax and prepare for the next day's adventures. And with a hearty "Good Night John-Boy" from Bobbi we shut the lights and closed our eyes on the day.