Old Tucson Studios

Since we were out of school Monday for President's Day, we decided to venture up to Old Tucson Studios - a place we tried to go when David was stationed here back in 1995, but it had met the fate of an arsonist, so it was closed the first time we tried to go. David is a huge fan of western movies so I was sure that he would enjoy it, and Tristan is always playing cowboy, so I figured he'd like it too. Many movies such as El Dorado, Geronimo, Rio Bravo, Young Guns II, and Tombstone were filmed here, along with some portions of episodes of Little House on the Prairie.

Grace and Tristan with their friends Kelsey and Tori

Guess where David ended up?


We walked into a gun fight as soon as we got to Main Street

We threw the kids in jail - they were bein' pretty naughty. The look on Grace's face is because she got her fingers caught in the gate...

Tristan, Grace, Tori, and Kelsey - before we went into the haunted mine...

Kelsey and Grace did pretty well. The guide was kind enough to warn us of everything before it happened, but that didn't make much of a difference to Tristan or Tori - they still weren't very pleased by the time we got to the exit!

We then redeemed ourselves with a train ride

These are some of the sights we saw while on the train.

Some mighty beautiful vistas with the mountains and clear blue skies!

Tristan and Tori eyeballing the carousel

Kelsey and Tori belong to this fine lady pictured here.

Tammy has become a very dear friend to me in these past 8 months, and I am going to miss her terribly when we move. I don't get to spend near enough time with her, so we thought this would be a fun outing to do together as our kids get along very well. Her husband is currently serving in Iraq, otherwise he would have been there with us - something I don't know if we could have handled... I imagine he and David could have gotten pretty rowdy together with all those cowboys and gunfights going on.

David taking the kids for a ride

I don't think there's much that beats a carousel.

In fact, they rode it a second time on our way out of the park.

Another show we saw - this one had us in tears we were laughing so hard

They even had a stagecoach that went around the studio

This is the train used in many of the movies filmed here, including "The Outlaw Josey Wales", so David thinks it is the coolest train ever (to use his words). One tidbit I found interesting was the fact that in those scenes that look as though the train was travelling cross country, it was only running on 220 feet of track!

Have I mentioned the beautiful views??

Boys will be boys...

Tristan found an old shovel head, and started to dig.

We had great fun that day, and great company too. It was nice to get out of the house (in short sleeves no less, while the rest of the country was buried in snow) and spend a day with friends and family.