Kartchner Caverns (and Tombstone)

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It turns out that the La Posada Lodge and the adjacent Hampton Inn are owned by the same people so we were able to avail ourselves of a typical Hampton Inn breakfast before setting off early the next morning for Kartchner Caverns State Park about 50 miles SE of Tucson. I will admit I wasn't expecting much from this stop, but it was a Sunday and all the airplane stuff was closed. Boy, was I wrong. Kartchner was FABULOUS! The caverns were not discovered till the late-70s and were kept secret by the discoverers for nearly 20 years before working with the Kartchner family (who owned the land) and the State Dept. of Parks to make them available to the public while still preserving them. What that means is that unlike most other tourist caves in the world, Kartchner is virtually pristine with only minimal additions to allow visitor access. Part of keeping it this was is limiting the number of daily visits and not allowing photography. That said, I'm not sure my photographs would do it justice so my advice is if you anywhere close, call ahead for reservations and make sure you go.

After leaving the Caverns it was back on the bus for Tombstone. Following the adage "if you can't say something nice..." I'll admit we did have a good lunch in Tombstone. Enough said.

The last stop for the day was in Bisbee another 25 miles SE and almost on the Mexican border. Bisbee was the center of copper mining in AZ in the late 19th till late 20th centuries. The downtown are is a collection of quaint Victorian buildings that were once the infrastructure supporting the mines, but now support us visitors. However, all the folks we talked to were very nice and the shops had more than the usual tourist junk. Who would have expected a Olive Oil and Balsamic Vinegar shop? Pity a bottle of good EVOO didn't seem like a good thing to carry on for the flight home. Just outside town is a HUGE open pit mine which operational till the mid-90s. There is a parking area/overlook that gives you a good view of the pit and some appreciation of the scale of open pit mining. Also by the parking area was a memorial to a Bisbee native, Arthur Benko a B-24 gunner who made Ace and shot down 19 enemy aircraft.

We also toured the Queen Mine, a deep shaft mine (although the shaft's were more horizantal than vertical) which has been converted into an attraction. They did a nice job giving us a sense what it was like to be a miner in the 19th century. Hard, hard work for relatively poor wages. After the tour, our long day ended with the bus ride back to the Lodge.

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