I spent a good part of today sorting out this blog. Late last night as I was trying to download pictures it was very slow going and so I thought I would delete some duplicate pictures that I had saved. Unfortunately when I looked at the blog some of my picture had disappeared. It was after midnight by this time and so I went to bed. This morning I started to see if I could restore them. Eventually I figured out how to do this and although it was time consuming everything is back where it belongs, phew!!!!
That's about it for today, another uneventful day apart from the pictures!!! Oh, and as Bryan is feeling a little better I booked our tickets for a Kartchner Cavern tour tomorrow.
Sunday 29th
Our cave tour was booked for 1:20pm and we had to be there an hour before so we worked out we needed to leave by 11:00am. I purposely booked a later tour as I didn't want to have to rush this morning, ha!! ha!! I have trouble getting going in the mornings since we have been on the road and definitely need my cup of coffee in the mornings!!
Bryan put cinnamon rolls in the oven for breakfast and then we got ready to go.
We left on time and arrived at Kartchner Caverns about noon. We checked in to let them know we were there and they asked if we wanted to go on an earlier tour and so we went on the 12:40pm tour instead. There was enough time before the tour to look around the exhibits and gift shop. The remains of an 86,000 year old Shasta ground sloth were found in the caves in 1995 and some of the bones and a model, picture here, are on display.
You are not allowed to take any bags, cameras, phones or drinks including water into the caves and so we had left everything in the car. This also means we couldn't take any pictures.
Kartchner Caverns is very protected from outside sources, in order to keep it as a living cave. The formations are still growing and it has been developed using great conservation methods.
A tram takes you from the Discovery Center to the entrance to the caves passing the sinkhole that was used to first discover the caves.
When you enter the caves you go through vacuum sealed doors to protect the enviroment of the cave. There is 99% humidity in the cave and they advise you to make sure you drink water before you go in to avoid becoming dehydrated. I was worried the humidity might be too much for us but it really wasn't too bad and I didn't think it was as hot or humid as Colossal Caves.
They have constructed walkways with steel railings to hold on to. They are wheelchair friendly and made in such a way that although they are obviously man made they complement the caves. You have to stay on the pathways and are told to touch nothing but the railings. Under no circumstances must you touch the formations or the cave walls.
We went on the Rotunda/Throne Room Tour. The Big Room Tour is closed during the summer as they want to preserve the bat colonies that live there in the summer. In winter they leave the cave and go north to hibernate, much the same as the bats at Colossal Caves. The formations are incredible and there are many different types.
In the Rotunda room, the guide showed us how to tell if a stalagtite was still living, apart from the slight difference in color. When he shone a laser light on a stagnant one the light was just a dot, as in when you make a presentation or shine it on rocks, but when he put it on a living stalagtite it created a glow through the formation which was amazing. You can see the water dripping from the giant stalactites and soda straws. We saw 45,000 year old bat guano or Bat poop!!!! The bats no longer have access to this room and haven't since before the cave was discovered.
There is cave bacon, which really does look like bacon. Curtains of the formations have formed and have many natural colors. Although I have seen all of these types of formations before I don't remember seeing as many different types of formations in one cave before and in such numbers, and they were definitely well preserved and protected. When you consider these have been forming over thousands of years it is truly amazing.
Towards the end of the tour you reach the Throne room which has "Kubla Khan", the largest column formation in Arizona at approx. 60 ft high.
This was the original trail the explorers used when they found the caverns in 1974. After crawling through a small hole they found in a sinkhole and then through miles of small tunnels, they came across the Throne room. They called it Xanadu, and Kubla Khan a poem relating to Xanadu. Click Here for the complete history of the discovery. There is a small section where you can sit and a music/light show is given. It's soothing, peaceful and serene and you feel as though you are in a different world.
To see pictures of the caves click here.
We exited from the cave back through the vacuum sealed doors and got the tram which took us back to the Discovery Center.
These caves were different to Colossal caves that we saw last week as they are wet caves compared to the dry caves at Colossal. I loved both of them for different reasons. The Colossal tour felt more as though you were exploring the cave. Kartchner was more commercialized although in an sensitive manner, sensitive to the need to preserve the caves and keep everything living and the formations were out of this world.
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| The hummingbird is here ^ above the purple flowers and in front of the green, ha!! ha!! |
This caterpillar was a lot more obliging!!!
This horselubber grasshopper was huge!!!
Monday 30th
This morning was a comedy of errors!!! We went in search of the missing package, alias the GPS - Bitchin Betty. Bryan called USPS and our mail forwarding agent trying to locate where our package was. All the postal service could tell us was that it had been delivered on September 26th. It would take 24 to 48 hours to get confirmation of a signature so we could at least see who had received it. All of these calls took a couple of hours, unbelievable!!! We decided that it was probably at the sorting office on base and they didn't know what to do with it or were waiting for us to collect it. The campground office staff said that their supervisor would check when she went to the post office as sometimes they put it in her mailbox for her to bring to the campground. We gave them our phone number and asked them to call if it showed up as we were going to go and try and find it. We went to the base post office. The lady there, who was on her own, was very helpful and made a call to the sorting office who told her they would try and track it down and she told us she would call us when she had any news. I'm sure the people in line waiting were not very happy but what great customer service.
We went shopping to get a few food bits that we need before we hit the road as we will be traveling pretty much every day for the rest of this week. While we were in the store the campground office called and told us they had our package, yay!!! Now, we can actually leave tomorrow. We went back to the post office to tell the lady that we had found the package and to thank her for her help.
We did laundry and went to collect our lottery winnings, $4. Ha!! Ha!! Bryan invested the $4 in a scratch off card and we won $10.
Bryan spent the rest of the day running updates on Bitchin Betty, to bring her up to date with her maps.
Tomorrow morning we have an appointment with Camping World to get new house batteries installed and then we will hit the road on the way to Willmot, Arizona.
Take care everyone.
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