Back when we went to Bisbee a few weeks ago, my mother and I passed a sign for Kartchner Caverns State Park on the freeway. We thought that we should check that out. Well, (unlike my usual practice of saying something and not following up on it later) we went to visit Kartchner Caverns this past Sunday. It was a fairly complicated thing because (the website said) you had to make reservations and buy tour tickets in advance and then get there an hour early and you couldn't bring water or any bags..... I got tickets for the 1140 am tour on Sunday and we were off (I was hoping that I hadn't forgotten one of the many "rules" associated with visiting these caves....oh...I mean caverns).
After a quick run around Reid Park where I used by new Nike Plus ipod attachment for the first time -- which I LOVE, by the way. It told me how far I went and my average speed. Genius. My mother and I got gas (yes...I did learn something from our Bisbee adventure) and got on the road to Benson, Arizona. We made it to the park with about 30 minutes to spare. (I was already a little stressed that we were too late for the tour and I tried to keep it to myself but my mother could tell and she made fun of me.....why did I arrange this trip in the first place? Am I a glutton for punishment or something? Please don't answer that because I unfortunately know the answer already.) This trip is going well so far. After several trips back and forth to the car because (1) you can't bring a purse on the tour and (2) they have a snack shop so we need money, we browsed around the very extensive gift shop (I guess they have you captive there for a while if you follow the one-hour before tour rule) and checked out the "cave displays." Pretty cool so far.
As usual, I nervously went to the bathroom before the tour started because I was sure that otherwise I would have some sort of "emergency" in that regard at a very inopportune moment. [I've always had to go to the bathroom before a movie starts for the same reason and there's something about Mack starting our workout stretches that has the same "bladder triggering" effect on me. Mack likes to point out to the class that I have the "smallest bladder" in the world or something like that and I just shrug it off because I really do have to go.]
We (safely) convened at the appointed time to meet our state park tour guide. She was a tall woman with a brusk manner who made the grave mistake of telling my mother that she would "try to change her mind about bats." My mother has a long history with bats. She used to live with a couple hundred of them. Come to think of it, I stayed with those little flying mice for several months at a time myself. You see, my mother's historically registered house in Virginia used to be the neighborhood bat cave. People used to comment about all the "birds" flying around our house at night. THOSE WERE NOT BIRDS! Also, my mother couldn't do anything about them because they're protected under Virginia law. So....she had to have a bunch of different experts come to the house and observe the bats and establish their patterns in order to determine when the little rodents had babies and how long those babies would gestate. In other words, a bunch of science nerds had to come over to tell her what day she could serve her eviction notice. After many months of waiting, the small window of time opened and my mother had people come and nail closed all of the entranceways. Even with all that planning, there were a few bats caught in there. Also, the amount of bat guano was disgusting and it literally had to be shoveled out of certain walls. Before the big eviction, we had many encounters with our roommates. At least once a month, a bat or two would get into the house and fly around and I remember rescuing a small bat from my cat in the middle of the night. Willie (the cat) had the bat pinned down with one paw on each of its leathery wings while its little body was thumping up and down on the wooden floor. Willie was purring really loud and having the time of his life. I had to push Willie away and grab the bat with a paper towel and let him out the front door. Ray had a lot of encounters and I have a very funny memory of him running around in his underwear after a bat late one night (with Willie in close pursuit). Ahhh...memories of bat chasing....good times.
The scary tour guide finally figured out that my mother wasn't budging (I should have just warned her that my mother is German and that should have made her give up any thought of changing my mother's mind right away). We got on a tram and rode the mile or so up to the entrance of the cave. First we had to look at the minuscule sink hole that was the original entrance. I have no idea what kind of mind set you have to have to wiggle your body into a little crack in the earth and dig for hundreds of yards hoping to find a cave. Its the same sort of insane behavior that I associate with the first astronauts. They were put into what can only be characterized as a large tin can and shot up into the sky. (It also confirms by previously discussed encounter with Buzz Aldrin and my opinion that he is certifiably nuts.) Fortunately these "crazy people" weren't buried alive and did find a series of caves.
We had to go through various doorways and hallways where doors were opened and closed and mist was sprayed on us to ensure that the climate of the cave was not disturbed by our visit. They told us that Arizona had spent more than $2 million dollars creating this system because the cave was still living. It was a pretty complicated arrangement. The cave was very very humid as a result and stalactites and various other "tites" and "mites" and "ocites" were all dripping as a result. We were told that means that they were still growing. By growing they meant that in 10,000 or so years a half inch would be added or something ridiculously slow like that. They had lights strategically positioned all over that the guide would click on and the cave was pretty darn fantastic and surprisingly colorful. There were red, white, off-white, brown and amber yellow formations which, I learned, indicate that the water which formed them seeped through the limestone from different sources. The tour meandered through this cave which wasn't that deep and ended with a light show of the largest column in Arizona which had been named Kubla Khan. The column was pretty huge and I couldn't imagine how long it took to make the column so big. While the light show was nice, there was this really ridiculously lame music accompanying the light show that had my mother and me snickering. Let's just say that it was along the lines of Enya. Why was it necessary to even have music? So weird. When the music finally ended, we left the cave and got back into the dry desert air (that I've grown to love). Phew. I could breathe again. After the tram ride back we hightailed it out of the parking lot to find someplace to eat.
I'd spied this truck stop and diner called "Triple T" on the 10 (east of Tucson) a few times and was anxious to have a partner in crime who could accompany me on my visit. It always looked busy which, I figured, was a very good sign. It also had the architecture of a 50s truck stop which made it infinitely cool. We stopped and went into the diner which also had 50s style decor and really old looking waitresses. There were booths all over and little sort of u-shaped bar that jutted out with seats all around it. My mother and I sat at the little bar area and ordered drinks. The menu looked like that of a typical diner and I had a late breakfast while my mother had the soup special -- Corn Chowder. While waiting we started talking to some of the people in the bar area (the seating was such that you end up looking at about everyone and its hard not to have a conversation). We found out that these guys were all either active truck drivers or retired truck drivers. One guy with a lot of tattoos told us that he drove from Ohio and that he had a delivery the next morning in Tucson. He said he'd been doing this for 12 years. This other guy showed us these walking sticks he made now but told us that he lived in Minnesota during the summer and that he used to drive trucks. We asked them really naive questions about truck driving and they were more than happy to oblige. I found out that the Ohio truck driver doesn't listen to books on tape because he has XM satellite radio and that some channels actually have books on tape read on them. Interesting. We also found out that Kansas City is the worst place for a truck driver with Washington DC being a close second. I've never been to Kansas City but was told that they're no stoplights and that everything has to do with ramps. That probably would be pretty difficult with an 18-wheeler. DC was just too full of traffic. I couldn't really see where trucks were actually allowed to go. Maybe they were just talking about the beltway. I don't know. Our food arrived and it was delicious. My mother couldn't stop raving about the corn chowder (and she's the queen of sending sub-par food back so it must really have been good). We decided that we would definitely have to come back again. Cool place.
We're going to see Wayne Newton at the local indian casino on Saturday. Danke schoen.
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