Dee's Blogs

Saturday, February 20, 2010

Tidbits

Tidbits of Observations and Useless Information While Traveling

I am way behind in my travel blog for this trip. Before I catch up, I thought I would post these little diddys. Check back every once in a while because I am sure the list will grow.

1) Why is the Ladies’ Room always further away from the Men’s Room? In all the public restrooms I have ever gone to, I think I remember only one place where the Ladies’ Room was the closer of the two. These restrooms must have been designed by men without a woman’s input. Don’t men know that when women have to go, they have to GO??? Those few extra steps can mean a matter of life and death.

2) And speaking of restrooms, why does every single public restroom have a sign on the door that says, “Please do not flush sanitary napkins, paper towels, or anything other than toilet paper down the toilet.” ??? Do women flush sanitary napkins and paper towels down their own toilets? Is every single public toilet a “first” for someone and they never knew this before? Are people really that stupid? The campground I am staying in has the ultimate sign: “Please do not place your toilet paper on the floor. Flush it down the toilet.”

3) Frozen lettuce just ain’t right. I have yet to figure out at what temperature with what source of power I can set my fridge so that my lettuce does not freeze. I am not the only one with this problem. Frozen carrots and celery are also gripes from other RVer’s. I am currently eating a frozen-lettuce salad. It is raining, rather cool and raw outside and I am eating a frozen lunch. I may have to heat up a pot of soup to warm up. Hope and Olly have had to crunch through frozen canned food for the last week. Have you ever tried to scoop frozen dog food out of a can?

4) With this trip, I had my first experience with a Border Patrol check stop. I now consider myself an expert having gone through at least five of them. You drive up, they ask if everyone in the vehicle is a United States citizen and they let you through. Is an illegal alien from Mexico going to answer that question by saying, “No, I am not a United States citizen; I just crossed over the border at the corner of that field.” In something like an RV, you could hide a little Mexican in numerous spots. I have yet to be inspected. If a bunch of Mexicans want to get through the Border Patrol real easy, just be passengers in an RV with Connecticut license plates. This week, I have been through Border Patrol stop-points in RVs from California, New Mexico, Arizona, and Connecticut. What exactly do the Border Patrol Officers look for to clue to them that there may be illegal aliens in a vehicle? Certainly not Roadtreks.

Friday, February 19, 2010

AZ Day 24

Day 24 -- Bisbee, Tombstone, and Kartchner Caverns

About eight of us went on this excursion today. We had reservations at Kartchner Caverns for one of the first tours, which was at 8:15 in the morning. We had to be there half an hour before and it took an hour to get there, so we left the campground around 6:30 in the morning -- ouch!

I've certainly taken enough pictures of western sunsets on this trip, so here is a picture of a western sunrise:

When we got to the caverns, we found out there was a mix-up. We don't know if the mix-up was at their end our our end, but we were scheduled for the 4:30 tour -- another ouch. So, we decided to re-arrange our plans and go to Bisbee and Tombstone first and then come back to the caverns later in the afternoon.

Bisbee is a very small copper mining town. We parked in the first place we could find which we thought was a Visitor's Center and ended up being a tour of the copper mine. They were filled for the next two tours. The next available one was after 2:00, so we decided to scratch the tour and just walked around the mine building and the gift shop. A few of the women are into minerals and gems, so we spent quite a lot of time there.

A cave as seen from the parking lot of the mine tours:

Once done at the mine, we drove up the road a bit to see the actual copper pit mine:

Phenomenal color contrasts of red, green, and blue:

Tombstone was our next stop. There's tons of pictures here. Many buildings and a few people. I watched the reinactment of the Shootout at the OK Corral. Even after seeing it, I am not quite sure what caused the shootout. It was either a fight over land and cattle or the Cowboys, the McLaury and Clanton brothers, were already wanted by the law and when the Earps and Doc Holliday caught up with them, they were shot.

Buildings:

A cool tile mural I saw on one of the buildings

Street Activities:

Another horrid "people picture" taken by Diane:

These are characters in the shootout. You'll see them again below

Shootout at the O.K. Corral

The true historical location with the cast of characters: The Stage:

Sorry about the glare. If you click on the pics, you can see them larger ... MUCH larger. LOL! If I post enough of these signs, maybe I won't have to wrack my brains out trying to figure out why the gunfight happened in the first place.

The Gunfight:

Virgil or Morgan Earp: Doc Holliday -- drunk and spewing sonets:

Left Pic: Wyatt Earp's daughter or granddaughter had the hots for Frank McLaury, one of the bad boys. I guess every story has to have a love interest.

Right Pic: Wyatt Earp on the right, one of his brothers on the left

Left Picture: Now the floozy is flirting (or fighting) with Billy Clanton. She also went off with Doc Holliday at one point.

Right picture: Billy Clanton and his father, Ike.

The Earps having a discussion with Ike: The fight erupts:

Morgan Earp (against Photography studio) is shot: Wyatt inspecting the damage:

Kartchner Caverns:

And, last but not least for the day, Kartchner Caverns. I probably should have broken this day up into three posts, but BlogSpot seems to merge them all together as one big string of posts anyway. We were not allowed to take pictures and it has been nearly two weeks since I've been there. My memory banks may come back to me. For now, I'll just say it was interesting and very different.

The caverns are a fairly new discovery, being discovered by amateur cavers in 1974. Kartchner is considered a living cavern. That means that water still seeps through it creating stalagtites and stalagmites. Just like caves at home, they are formed by limestone. The difference is that our caves have a lot of water -- usually with rivers or lakes in the caverns. The other major difference is the temperature. Eastern caves, like Howe Caverns in New York, normally have a steady temperature of 54 degrees. Kartchner Cavern is 72 degrees or higher with a relative humidity of 99%. It was a rather cool, breezy day and walking into the cavern was like walking into a humid blast furnace.

Along with the typical stalagtites and stalagmites, there were formations called bacon, eggs, soda straws, among others. Bacon was formations that rippled along the ceiling in wide ribbons. They were streaked in colors of white and brown that made them look just like, well ... bacon. Eggs were the towered formations that had a bowl of water on the top.

I don't know if this link will work, but here is a video on YouTube of the caverns put out by the Arizona Parks Department.

Kartchner Caverns

So ends the busiest day of my trip to Arizona.