Photo: Sunrise at Kartchner Caverns
The last weekend of January we went to Surprise, Arizona for a visit with Ray's brother and wife. Superbowl Sunday we enjoyed the hospitality of a niece and her husband in Phoenix.
February 2000
Enjoyed visiting, playing pinochle, bowling, Mexican train dominoes and several side trips with Rich and Roswitha while in Sun City Grande--Surprise. We went to an Indian Hoop Dancing tournament, a Chocolate Festival and a Senior Fitness Fiesta. We parked at their home for a few days, then went to an RV resort with all the amenities of Sun City. Great place. We enjoyed the visit very much!
We had the windows on Camelot tinted with a "limo" tint wherever legal and lighter tints on the other windows. We also had the new roof vent covers installed, so wind and rain are no longer a concern if the vents are open. Pretty neat stuff!
From the Phoenix area we went to Tucson to visit Ray's mother and sister. More visiting, eating, and card playing. Next stop--Mesa and some square dancing.
Lots of friends here in Mesa - folks we had no idea spent time here. It is really like old home week. We have been dancing C1 and A2 to Mike Sikorsky and Randy Dougherty and one evening with Bill Haynes calling. Everyone has been great. Friends from Los Altos have chauffeured us several times. We enjoyed the "famous" Organ Stop Pizza followed by Cold Stone Ice Cream. Organ Stop Pizza features a 1927 Wurlitzer Theater Organ built for the Denver Theater which has been restored and added to. The entire building was built around the organ to show all of its components in the best fashion. The organists are accomplished in pop, Broadway jazz and classical music. A most enjoyable evening -- and the pizza was pretty good, too!
On a Sunday after church we drove through Apache Junction towards Tortilla Flat (sounds like a bad Western novel, doesn't it?) and stopped at a ghost town which is now a tourist stop and enjoyed the shops, train, horses, characters and wagons, but a dust storm kicked up, and we ran for cover and headed back to Mesa.
This would be an enjoyable place to spend a longer period of time. However, right now we are itching to move on. Speaking of itching, my eyes have been itching and watering since we arrived in Mesa. They were okay in Lake Havasu, Surprise and Tucson, but they are killing me here. I'm taking antihistamines and eye drops like crazy. So, maybe I'm allergic to Mesa.
Ray finally got his multiple flat tires on his new bike fixed (went through three new inner tubes), and he is running me ragged. Five miles is about the best I can do yet, but I'll increase it gradually. He goes without me after we have reached my limit.
Kartchner Caverns
A quick overnight stop in Tucson then on to Benson, Arizona where we arose at 6:00 a.m. to get in line to get tickets to visit Arizona's newest state park, Kartchner Caverns. This massive living cave just opened in November 1999. While I was looking up information on the internet, a TV news report stated the cave tours were sold out until June. But, undaunted, we went to Benson anyway, and the campground told us they have 100 tickets available daily. The Visitor Center opens at 7:30, but people line up about 5:30. So, leaving for the 7-mile trip to the park at 6 a.m. gave us a number 22. We got tickets for the 1:00 tour.
Anyway, the caverns were discovered by two cavers in 1974. They kept their secret from the owners of the land until 1978. They then sold the land to the Arizona Park System in 1988. Eleven years later the park opened. It was a massive undertaking. There is a column (stalactites forming downward meeting stalagmites forming upward) that is over five stories high. The rotunda room is the size of a football field. The last time I got up that early to see something was when we were in Australia going to Ayers Rock.
From here we plan to go towards New Mexico and more locations eastward. Ray wants to meet some friends in Florida in April, and maybe we'll hit the Square Dance Nationals in Baltimore in June. We'll see how it goes.
Tombstone, Arizona March 1, 2000
Tombstone, Arizona is a mining town founded in 1877 when silver was discovered. The mines were closed a couple of times and were permanently flooded in 1903. They remain flooded beneath the town today.
The Gunfight at the OK Corral is definitely the town's most infamous piece of history, but many other stories certainly rival it. The number of "ladies of the evening" and gunfighters who actually inhabited this place reads like a who's who of bad western movies.
The Bird Cage Theater is here with much of the original dust in tact. The popular song "She's only a bird in a gilded cage..." was inspired in this theater. Fourteen bird cage crib compartments suspended from the ceiling overhanging the casino and dance hall is where the "ladies of the night" plied their trade. Sixteen gunfights took place there and 140 bullet holes are in the walls and ceilings.
Boot Hill Cemetery (the first with that name) is where the infamous and unknowns are buried beneath piles of rocks. Many tombstones simply read with a name, shot by and a date. One poor guy was hanged by mistake, and his tombstone has an apology for that error on it!
We returned to Camelot after sightseeing and were both hungry, so fixed a salad with some tomatoes from our last farmer's market visit and some great Feta cheese with basil. Had some basil fettuccini so used some more tomatoes, onions and garlic for a quick dish. Some sun dried tomato and basil bagels were toasted (we turned the generator on just to run the toaster) and fat-free cream cheese mixed with garlic and sun-dried tomatoes topped the toasted bagels. Not bad for roughing it in the desert. We remembered an ice-cream place we had seen earlier, so walked back downtown for an ice cream cone
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