This past Saturday I got to cash in this birthday present from my friends Sarah and Matt-a trip to The Shady Dell in Bisbee, AZ! Bisbee has been on our list of places to visit for a while so this was a perfect gift idea.
On our way there I tried to teach them how to sing Cuanto le Gusta, singing this in the car on a road trip was a major family tradition when I was young (and started when my mom was young with her family). They had never heard of the song, so they mostly sang "Chupa la capbra" and other made up words. You can hear Miss Piggy sing it
here. The original was by Carmen Miranda and Bing Crosby also has a version out there.
Halfway there we made a planned stop at the
Pima Air and Space Museum near Tucson to check out
The Boneyard Project, a very cool art exhibit with artists using WWII aircraft as canvas.
The exhibit is up through May and I would highly recommend it, there is some very cool low brow artists involved and the rest of the museum is pretty fun as well. They even had a good veggie burger at their little cafeteria :).
Once we got back on our way and reached Bisbee, the first two things I loved about the little town were the way the houses are all built up on the hills and the
Lavender Pit. The pit is the site of the old copper mine and it sort of felt like you were looking at a mini Grand Canyon it was so vast.
We made our way straight to check in at
The Shady Dell and it felt like we had traveled back in time to 1952. The place is so adorable, we stayed in a vintage trailer and the black & white TV, old-fashioned radio, and record player were nice touches.
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After relaxing for a while we went back into town to do some shopping, we tried to get dinner at the
Old Bisbee Brewing Company but it turns out they are very focused on their beer and only have bratwurst and popcorn. So after hanging out there for a while we went to dinner at
The Bisbee Grille which had a very good Portabella Ravioli and Trivial Pursuit cards on the tables which was fun. After it got dark (and cold) we took the
Bisbee Hearse Tour which was just as spooky as promised. Being an old mining town they have a lot of ghost stories, with one of the most haunted places in town being the trailer Tom and I were staying in that night! Our tourguide was excited because the
Ghost Adventures crew had recently filmed there so she will be appearing on the show in an upcoming episode. Also, I swear there was no special effects on this picture, but I tried to take a picture of the hearse twice and this light was in both pictures . . . spooky.
We stayed up late that night watching Rebel Without a Cause (all of the movies at The Shady Dell are vintage of couse) but didn't have any ghostly happenings. Did I mention the trailers are right next to the enormous town cemetary?
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| (see the tombstones in the background?) |
The next morning we got a late breakfast at the
Bisbee Breakfast Club before more shopping. There are a lot of great antique stores, but they did seem a little pricey. We also perused the local art galleries, but we are all pretty picky on our art and did a lot of window shopping. On our way back to Tempe we stopped in Tombstone for a little more old west fun.
I always want to travel to far away places, but when I remember how many fun little towns there are in Arizona I think why do we need to stray far from home?
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