The Bird Cage

When we were in Tombstone, Arizona on our way back from Bisbee, we took a peek inside the famous Birdcage Theatre. While Tombstone screams out tourist trap with fake cowboys, stagecoach rides, and souvenir stores, this building is one of the more authentic sites in the town.

The Bird Cage Theatre was a combination theater, saloon, gambling parlor and brothel that operated from 1881 to 1889 in Tombstone, Arizona at the heyday of the town's silver boom. At that time, it was known as one of the wildest night spots in the country.

The name was derived from the 14 cages located on two balconies on either side of the main room. The cages had drapes that were closed while prostitutes were with customers. The main room below included a stage and orchestra pit where live shows were performed.

I love the exterior colors of the building.

This old painting is Fatima, one of the Bird Cage performers.

The lobby held enough artifacts to keep me busy for awhile.

Some photos of the famous customers, including Bat Masterson, Doc Holliday, and Diamond Jim Brady, who passed through the Bird Cage.

We didn't get beyond the lobby with the bar since tours and performances weren't scheduled until later in the day.


While I'm not really into watching Western saloon variety shows, I wish there'd been a performance scheduled at the time so we could have toured the rest of the building!

Snarky Bits of Nothing

Since my laptop is still M.I.A. with a revised arrival date of 4:30 p.m. this afternoon,I thought I'd post a list of my most pleasant daily rants.

Rain already! Geez! Every evening the weatherman teases us with the location of the clouds and "When will we get rain in the valley?" Probably the twelth of never! This has been the summer of the giant dirt storms (those silly haboobs) with the exception of one short hard rain. Oh well. My luck, I'll attract a hurricane when we're in Florida in late September! After all, I am a tropical storm magnet.

Speaking of haboobs, some folks in Arizona got pissed because they said the local weathermen have given those dirt storms a name derived from the part of the world where Muslims live. Only in Arizona! (Where we now have an official state gun.)

What is it with these convertibles in the hot Arizona summer? Hello! It's 110 degrees. Every foray from the house, we see ejits with their tops down out cruising at high noon. A 110 degree breeze is like sticking your head in a 500 degree oven! I guess they're vying for the lobster face award? As my grandfather used to say, when the train arrived with the brains, they forgot to go to the station!

People! Do your exercising early before the temp hits 105! We recently sighted the neighbors out exercise-walking 2 miles from home at 2:00 p.m.! No hats, no sunglasses, no water bottles, and the temp was 109. (See the above wisdom from my grandfather.) To top it off, the man had on black socks halfway up to his knees with his short short gym shorts and the wife (referred to as Crazy Lady in the neighborhood) had on long black pants. What? No long-sleeved black hoodie? On a side note, this is the man a few months ago who called 911 and brought the cops to our door because he saw menacing junior high girls lurking behind our wall in the community park. We think he was pissed because the 11-year olds were hanging out in the spot where he normally stands to eavesdrop on us in the pool. I guess he's waiting for the swingers' convention to start? Strange rangers!

Seriously Miss Saby! At the ripe age of 13+, you're now digging holes in the backyard to hide bones? Do we not feed you enough? Suddenly, after five years, Saby in her old age has started digging up the backyard. I attribute it to her stays at Dog Bone Ranch. I think she's acquired some bad habits from other dogs! Or maybe the ranch just got her in touch with her primal self?

Please. We do not want to hear about your colonoscopy, latest trip to the ER, and the time you used the over the counter earwash and huge pieces of brown wax came out of your ears while we're eating at Rigatoni's! About the time our salads arrived, the people three tables away fired up. A couple with loud high-pitched voices started down the list of their latest medical adventures. I told Craig when we left, I should stop by and express my sympathy in person for the woman's bowels, his heart problems, and the son's ear wax. (I didn't. I'm all talk.)

I somehow managed to miss the ABC News piece on "How to Stop Mindless Eating" because I had my head in the refrigerator. What was that?

We finally updated to an HD receiver with our cable package. Last night Craig and I were hysterically howling during the 10 o'clock news. Seriously, we've got some strange-looking nuts in Arizona!

And then there's Blogger. Enough already. Fix it! None of the editing buttons on the Compose toolbar have been working since Saturday.


I really should do this more often. (But for your health, I should probably just keep my mouth shut!) Hopefully by tomorrow, I will return to normal -- whatever that is!

Cottages and Flowers

The latest update on my laptop shows it will arrive on Tuesday, so I'm excited about that! We switched to a faster internet connect, and I did a bunch of updates and disabled some toolbar items on the Samsung netbook that I rarely use, so it's now quite speedy! I'm glad I finally figured out the problems since I've had it for 8 months.

I've decided the place to buy laptops is Costco since their two year warranty is paying for my current HP laptop repair and a new battery at no charge. The laptop was still functional, but I decided to get it in tip-top condition before the warranty expires in November. Hopefully, this will extend its life for another two years. That's probably wishful thinking!

I found a few Bisbee files that hadn't been transferred to my laptop yet, so here are some more photos from our morning walks.

I liked this woman's pots. She appeared out of nowhere to find out where we were staying and give us a brochure for the room she rents.

I love the exterior colors on this cottage and the yellow adirondack chairs!

Pink and green cottage! When I was a child, other kids were allowed to pinch you if you wore pink and green. What the heck!

More shades of pink and green. Love the artifacts that hang on the walls!


Unlike the hot dry Phoenix area, Bisbee is in bloom! Love these sunflowers.

San Sebastion Review

Since I'm without laptop and my photo files for awhile (the latest update says I'll get my machine back on August 23?), I'm going to give one of these slideshows another whirl. I know the format doesn't work for people who have Macs, but maybe someone will be able to access it? We'll see!

Craig and I loved this little daytrip to San Sebastion del Oeste. The drive into the mountainous countryside was amazing. When Gustavo finally got us all the way up that cobblestone road to the town (talk about hard on cars!), the village was like nothing else we'd seen in Mexico.

Back to the slideshow! Hope it works!

San Sebastion Travels Slideshow: Becky’s trip to San Sebastion del Oeste, Mexico (near Puerto Vallarta), Pacific Coast, Mexico was created by TripAdvisor. See another Puerto Vallarta slideshow. Create your own stunning free slideshow from your travel photos.

P.S. If the screen is just showing black, try clicking on this link. For some reason, Trip Wow slideshows don't like Blogger!

More Wanderlust!

Craig and I have had two free tickets on Southwest just burning holes in our suitcases since last January. I originally signed onto their credit card because I needed the tickets for family emergencies in the Midwest. Since then our lives have changed. Craig retired, so we have the time to drive to and from instead of me flying by myself.

I tried waiting Southwest out hoping they would open that mythical flight to and from Cancun that I've been hearing about, but after doing some research, I realized my free tickets would expire before that ever happens. So we started mulling our options. We thought about flying into Seattle and meeting our son in Whistler, B.C. in late August, but he was already booked. California and Colorado were out because we can easily drive there. I originally looked at Florida, one of two states in the U.S. I haven't visited, but then dismissed it because Key West was the only destination I really desired and it's so pricey! We even looked at Maine in September, but can you spell arm and a leg?

The other day, I was perusing Southwest trying to think of a destination for these rapidly fading award tickets and I came upon a post on their forum. Anna Maria Island? Never heard of it, but people were raving about it! I googled it and are you kidding me? I didn't know Gulf of Mexico water could look like that! And the place appears to be very quaint and laidback, not to mention much more affordable than Sanibel or Key West.

After checking their online ticketing last night, I truly thought there was no way my two standard roundtrip award certificates would translate into two roundtrip tickets to Florida with their new points system, but wonders never cease.

Cue Eddie Money! We've got two tickets to paradise in late September! I even scored a full size rental car for a week for $130 including the tax! So far the tab is up to $145 for the roundtrip tickets and rental car. Smirk smirk. Now I just need to find that wonderful little beach cottage.

Anyone ever been to Anna Maria Island, Florida or thereabouts? These photos, of course, are not mine because I haven't been there yet!

They had me at pastel adirondacks and that white sand beach.

The shape of the island reminds me a little of you know where!

Even the color of the water looks oddly familiar.

I'll keep you posted! On a sad note, my laptop is going in for repairs today. A loud whining fan indicates it's overheating, and I'll also be getting a new battery in the process. I'll still have my netbook, but most of my photos are on the laptop, so my posting could be a little erratic for awhile!

The House of Art

This abode stands directly across from the dog bark fence in Bisbee, so I'm guessing the same artist could be at work? It's very interesting, but I need a translator. It's definitely a statement about the two sexes, perhaps some modern day takeoff on Adam and Eve? (You've got the nude female and one side and the male on the other with the garden flower in between.)

This female is obviously not allowed to speak.

While this princess seems to be caged.

And our Eve looks like she's given birth to a litter.

?????????

And Adam has skulls (symbols of death?) at his feet. Actually, I'm now looking at this male and noticing a crown of C.D.'s (crown of thorns?) on his head. Could he represent Jesus?

Interesting, but what the heck!

Bisbee Walkabout

We love our morning walks in Bisbee. Number one -- the route is up and down hills at a higher elevation, so it's great exercise. Number two -- it's reasonably cool, unlike Phoenix this time of year. And last but not least, there's something unusual to look at around every corner!

We catch a great view over the town as we make our way up the hill.

A naked lady in the window!

Beer cap mosaic design on this door. (Now I know what to do with those caps that someone keeps flipping into my silverware drawer.)

I multi-task, shopping while we walk. These bolsas were $4.00. Sold!


Wall murals all over town!

Okay, this piece of art is amazing! The Hillary car. This person is obviously a fan!

The international sign for don't pee on my wall?

And what a sight! A woman was walking her pet goats to town. They stopped to munch on roadside greens while she waited patiently.

License and Registration Please?

Saw this dog in Bisbee and just couldn't resist!

Good Eats and Fun Friends

We just got home from a Friday night out at the Tee Pee Mexican Restaurant in Phoenix. The food was very tastey! We met a lovely young couple at the bar who own a wonderful little breakfast/lunch restaurant on Isla Mujeres! I think the name of it is Barlito's?

But seriously, it was wonderful getting to see Tiffany and Brad again and also meeting some other Phoenix people who visit Isla. Thanks to Tiff and Brad for organizing the get together and including us! We can't wait to get back to Isla Mujeres in three months so we can satisfy our Barlito cravings and see them again.

Speaking of good Mexican food, we ate at Santiago's twice on our trip to Bisbee this week. We discovered the restaurant on our first trip to Bisbee four years ago, and this time, we stayed at the Hotel San Ramon above the restaurant. It was very convenient, especially when a big monsoonal storm blew in Tuesday night just as we were finishing dinner.

As always, the food was great! The first evening, we sampled the Ceviche, Enchilada Suizas, and Bandera Burro. I didn't take any photos since we were eating with friends. The second evening, we both ordered the taco platters. All the dishes were wonderful. If you're headed that way, we highly recommend Santiago's for dinner!

And now -- off to bed. It was after midnight Isla time when we all left the Tee Pee. It's way past my bedtime!

The Life's a Beach Wagon

One of our favorite things to do in Bisbee is walk the hills. The town's elevation is about the same as Denver (a mile high), so it's 15 to 20 degrees cooler than home and we can take long morning walks without overheating.

Tuesday morning while walking the loop around the town, I spotted an old blue VW van. The body shop across the street actually had its garage door painted to match the van. As I was snapping photos, I suddenly noticed the decal in the back window! Take a look!

I think I need one of these! (The van and the decals!)

One Man's Trash

Bisbee is an art wonderland! The art's avant-garde, and it's all over town. Everyone knows the saying one man's trash is another man's treasure. Artists built a fence for the local dog park out of wood scraps, old C.D.'s, old fan blades, paint, stuffed animals, old bed springs, and who knows what else! The wall of an old building completes the fourth side, and they decorated that with graffiti!

Leaving Suburbia

We took a left turn out of suburbia and Dorothy, we're not in Kansas anymore! I literally woke up dizzy Monday morning and staggered through the morning routine to the car, but road trips wait for no man! By the time we hit Benson, Arizona and rolled into the Safeway parking lot for a Starbuck's, Craig yelled, Where's your camera!

I always miss the good photos. There she was -- the one that got away. A very large motorcycle mama with plaid beer advertising pants and tattoos blanketing her arms from shoulders to wrists. Craig evidently thinks I have a death wish? A few more miles down the road and a frappe later, Craig whipped a U so I could get a snapshot of Digger's hearse.

We spent the rest of the day on the restaurant/bar tour of Bisbee, catching up with friends who sailed away from Washington State in 1999 on a large wooden sailboat bound for the Pacific side of Mexico. They spent four years touring from one port to the next until they landed in Southern Arizona in 2003. We've been in Arizona five years now, so it's about time we caught up!

Here are some of the day's photos that didn't get away!

My dizziness blew in with a large dust storm on Sunday night. I think Craig will probably wake up dizzy today. I wonder why? Tee hee.

Stay tuned!