Unfashionably early....but a Hula-va good time!

 

We left Las Cruces and travelled to Benson, which is most famous for Tombstone and the fight at the OK Corral.  We're staying at the beautiful Cochise Terrace Park at an elevation of 4100 feet.  After arriving we hurried to take our showers, have dinner and get into make-up and our "Hula Mama" costumes.  We made it to the hall and arrived to….nothing.  Not a soul around, but it was decorated.  So we sat there and noticed that the time was an hour earlier than what RRR's watch said.  It turns out that Arizona isn't quite in the same time zone as New Mexico and we were an hour early for everything.   Finally people started arriving, the excellent one-man band started playing, and people started line-dancing and having a great time.  Most of the costumes were of the witch variety, but one woman came dressed as a bag lady - hilarious.  RRR impressed the crowd with her dancing accompanied by her walker.  She got a lot of applause every time she got up.  Nui was invited to do a hula, to music which was a mix of country, rap and Hawaiian.   We then lined up for the costume contest but didn't win anything.  However, it turns out the judges wanted to give the top prize to Nui and RRR but couldn't because it was for a free breakfast and we were supposed to leave in the morning.  People were incredibly friendly and wanted us to stick around for the winter.  We met a great couple from Switzerland and spent the evening trying to understand each other's French.  One fellow offered us a guided tour of Tombstone, so we're staying an extra day and going to the OK Corral.