MY WALLET HAD A HEART ATTACK & THE OLD GHOST TOWN OF GLEESON, ARIZONA

GLEESON'S SALOON WHERE TOMBSTONE'S INFAMOUS JOHNNY RINGO WAS LAST SEEN

Woke up this morning & the pain in my knee was gone for awhile until I walked around a bit outside. Definitely better than the last 3 days though so I have had to assign myself a difficult task for the day.....stay off that leg & rest that knee!! This did not turn out to be an easy assignment:((

THIS OLD JAIL IS IN THE PROCESS OF BEING RESTORED BY A PRIVATE CITIZEN

Finished my part of the kitchen cabinet painting project late yesterday afternoon so the framework, baseboard, &cupboard ends are done. A friend is spray painting the cupboard doors so all that will be left to do by the end of the week is put the doors all back on. Not looking forward to that because putting things back to-gether for me is always much harder than taking things apart!!

Had a phone call from the Bayfield garage saying the transmission job on the van is done so we picked up the vehicle this morning & my poor wallet is now $986.20 lighter:(( The motorhome goes in next for an oil change, filter, fluids, brakes & tire check, etc. After that comes the Santa Fe......oh no, my wallet just had a heart attack!!

THESE CRUMBLING STEPS ONCE LED TO A LIVELY TOWN DANCE HALL

As mentioned before, I had been having a few problems with our hotmail account. I have switched most of our RV blogging email stuff over to our Gmail account now & noticed this morning that the MnMnM's blog comment has finally worked. It bothers me to think other people may have left comments in the past that I never got therefore never published them. So, my apologies to anyone out there who may have sent us a comment that we never received. We will still continue to monitor our hotmail account every day.

GLEESON'S OLD CEMETERY

Came across an update in blogger this morning that I wasn't aware of before. Had noticed about 6 months ago that my posting process wasn't working the way it did a year ago. I couldn't seem to regulate the size of my photos, clicking on photos to enlarge them didn't work anymore, & I was having difficulty placing the photos into the body of the blog. It had become an annoying tedious process every night. I hadn't realized that a new updated 'post editor' had been installed by blogger until I stumbled across the update last night. Looks like the new post editor has some great new features so I'm hoping when I add photos to this blog later to-night it's going to be an easier process for me. To check your blog for the new post editor, go......Dashboard-Settings-Basic. Scroll to bottom of page & look for 'Select post editor.' Make sure 'Updated editor' is checked & then have a look at it's latest features.

Some of the southwest's ghost towns we have been to were easy to find & some were not. It was about a half mile hike off the Charleston road on a rocky trail to reach Millville, Arizona. Charleston across the river required a river crossing plus a lot of searching among the thick mesquite to find it. Tombstone & Pearce you can drive right into & Fairbank has a parking lot just off highway 82. The ghost town of Gleeson was harder to pin down because you can drive right through it & not even know you were there. Just a few tumble down buildings scattered along Gleeson Road.

We had checked out Gleeson on Google Earth & noticed a cemetery on the northwestern side of the road so that's where we headed first to get our bearings. Our blog for that day is HERE & you can find our PHOTOS in our web album. Luckily we ran into a fellow by the road who pointed out an old decrepit building which turned out to be a one time saloon in Gleeson. Tombstone's infamous Johnny Ringo was reportedly last seen in this building at the bar. The falling down decaying building is the most authentic piece of the old west we've seen to date. The main door is locked & it was hard to see inside but I was able to stick my camera through a crack & take some photos. It wasn't until later that night when I downloaded the pictures that we actually saw what was inside that room. The roof was partially collapsed as well as the floor. Be sure to see the pictures & the surprise on the wall to the left.

                ONLY THE WALLS LEFT OF GLEESON'S ONCE PROUD HOSPITAL

I made my way through the underbrush around to the back of the building to see if I could get in a back door but part of the floor had tumbled into the basement & I couldn't get any further in. This is a genuine building, no renovations, no glitsy stuff, no phony artifacts, & no attempt to make it somehing it never was. This saloon is the real deal!! It's very unfortunate that it can't be saved & the state it is in now would require major effort & money to preserve it. I couldn't help but feel very sad for the old building knowing it's dark future & imagining it's colorful past. Dance hall girls, miners, cowboys, card games, smoke & laughter, saloon brawls, & lots of the boys bellied up to the bar. If your in the area, go have a look at this piece of genuine old west history because sadly, I don't think it's going to be around much longer.........................:((

ONE OF THE LAST UNTOUCHED & TRUE WILD, WILD, WEST SALOONS

GROANER'S CORNER:(( And remember this as you age.....First you forget names, then you forget faces. Then you forget to pull up your zipper...............and it's even worse when you forget to pull it down.

OUR PHOTO ALBUMS http://picasaweb.google.com/stargeezerguy/

The only thing better than right now will someday be the memories of right now...AL.