Once we pick a direction in which to travel, we Google everything from Los Angeles to the destination to find interesting places in which to stop. This time, our search led us to Goldfield, Arizona.
Starving, as we always are, we high-tailed it to the ghost town’s restaurant, Mammoth Steakhouse & Saloon and ate our faces off while listening to a musician rock some tunes.
We schlepped down a little hill and went to the gold mine. Jumped into the old and rickety elevator and went down down down deep into the old mine. Our guide told us what all the tools were used for and other stuff that went on there. 
He was fantastic!! When the tour was done, we were made to walk up ALL the stairs to the top.
I will go ahead and say that bringing high heeled shoes on a road trip – as your only pair of close-toed shoes is really dumb. Dumb. Dumb.
The Mystery Shack was near the gold mine so we walked on over and went in. 
(Okay. Really. The whole town is near everything in itself.) It is a shack built into a hill and everything is at a 45 degree angle. The guide had people demonstrating how f-ed it makes your sense of balance. Like walking to one side and back… And he had Sara sit on a chair – then put a ball on some wood thing on the wall. The end of the wood thing would make the ball fly right at the person on the chair. So, even though we all knew damn well that thing was not going to really hit the person – was fun to watch the chair sitter freak out and jump up. HA! I didn’t get to try anything because of my freaking high heels.
There was a reptile exhibit, so that had to happen. Even though I live in California, I have never seen (and never want to) a rattlesnake in the wild, so a zoo or exhibit is the closest I will ever get (I hope!)
The next attraction we checked out was the whorehouse, of course. (p.s. My spellcheck just made sure to correct me that whorehouse is one word and not two. Phew!) Lu Lu’s Bordello. It cost a few bucks to take the tour and it was a nice quick one as well. What we learned was that whoring back then was even ickier than what ick we assumed. The girls had to bring flipping buckets of water to the house so the smelly dirty ass miners can bathe. So, the first miner got the clean water and the rest of the miners after were in nastier, dirtier & shittier water. Mmm Yes. Bathing in the same water all night long. What does that even say about the guys at the end of the night? Eww and Ewww.. Get there earlier. The girls also wrote letters home for the men. The newer girls were in this particular bordello, til the madam trusted them. Then, when they were nice and broken in, they went across to the saloon.
Only Sara and I were on the tour. But, our tour guide, dressed as a “Floozy,” projected as though she were in a room with 50 people as soon as she started on her memorized schpiel. But, if one of us talked to her, she spoke in her normal voice. At the end of the tour, we were encouraged to hang out and take pictures. There was a bathtub. (I don’t know if it was a replica or an original tub.) (Okay. I hope replica because, otherwise.. EWW!)
Sara put her foot in it to pose and it made the loudest noise, like it was breaking or something. We were sure they would come back upstairs and reprimand us, but they didn’t. Yay, Us! We broke Goldfield and got away with it!
The last thing we hit up was the train. It went around the town. It was the last ride of the day and was during sunset, so the lighting was amazing.
Before we ditched out towards Tucson, we browsed the gift shop. I have a few friends with awesome children, for whom I love to buy interesting presents, so a little bit of shopping is a must sometimes. I also bought candy. For me. And did not share it. Ney!
When we exited the parking lot, Sara’s tire died. I have changed many a tire in my life, but was in no mood. But, before I even had a chance to call Auto Club, a truck pulled up and a man, that is one of the train conductors, stepped out and saved the day. He had the best name. Whiplash. He put on the spare. Posed for a picture and sent us to a WalMart. And nothing says “Old West” like WalMart.
For girls that always lived in cities – the products in that WalMart were.. uh.. interesting.. 
When the tire was fixed (which was very quick), we said “F it!” and went all the way to Tucson. Tombstone was on our minds.
Then we hung out with strippers and skydived into the Grand Canyon in wetsuits, holding cardboard..
haha. Yeaaahhh Noooo…. Just making sure you are still paying attention!
– Jenn
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