Caving a Recreational Pastime

Nov 10/17  Weather  sunny, 82 low 50.  Not far out of Benson maybe 10 miles is quite a State Park. 

walkways through the caverns

Today we are going to do something that neither one of us is too keen on.  Caving, Potholing, Spelunking.  No not really but that is a recreational pastime that people do.  They look for underground holes, caves, rooms.  Billy and Rosey wait till it is big and we can walk into it.   We are visiting the Kartchner Caverns State Park where we will go underground to see preserved cave bacon, helictites, soda straws, stalactites, stalagmites and brushite moonmilk.  Well if you say so!!!!!  Taking the walk down under with a ranger it will all be explained to us in detail.  Words we never knew....  and the meanings.  All your belongings have to be left in a locker.

soda straws, some 20 feet long

You don't have to worry about feeling claustrophobic the two cave rooms we were in were huge, one was 2/3 the size of a football field.   As you enter into a series of tunnels it is shut off between each area with refrigerator type doors to seal in the humidity and moisture and seal out the everyday bacteria and contaminants.  In the final tunnel before entering the caverns you will actually be misted off and several warnings that you do not touch the rock formations, do not leave your contaminant behind as these speleothems (cave deposits) are still growing~~~~ Wow.

The Big Room

No bags, purses, cell phones, no cameras, no picture taking(all these pics are downloaded from the net) and very little lighting inside but the walkways are excellent and the view is spectacular.  Enjoy Nature at its wildest.  The two cavers who found this rare double cavern crawled in through a sinkhole and with many many trips inside  continued to find more and more over time while keeping it secret for 14 years!  Their fear was how to preserve it.  Their find lives on as an Arizona State Park and very well preserved.

kubla khan

 bacon formations

Not sure how many caves we will visit in the future but definitely feeling glad that we went in to see this display.  Driving up you see the hill not aware that 260 feet below is 50,000 years of limestone cave deposits and its still growing - dripping everywhere extending the formations and creating new ones. 

under that hill are the caverns!!!!  well hidden

An RV Resort and an Observatory

Nov 7 to 14/17  Benson, Arizona .....Weather is sunny and warm.  80's plus for the next week (even 86 one day) low 50's.  Open those windows, in the desert you don't need the A/C;  when the sun goes down it cools right off.  Perfect weather. 

observatory at Butterfield RV

We are going to hang out for a week here since the weather is so nice.  We stopped before in the middle of winter and it was a bit chilly at night almost freezing since the elevation is over 3500 feet.   
There is the most unique campground here.  Butterfield RV Resort; it just happens to have an Observatory on site with 2 resident astronomers.  Free nightly shows.  Really ???    Now that is a feature you don't see often; we can say this is the only place in the US or Canada we have seen a park with an onsite Observatory.  Pretty Cool.

Butterfield RV Resort

Feb 4 & 5 Benson, Arizona

Weather  68 and sunny, at night 30(freezing maybe) and clear  Elevation:3583 feet

We are in the lower east corner of Arizona which is fairly hilly and desert with enough elevation that it makes it nice during the day but  "cold" at night.  Billy keeps worrying about the water hookup and if it will freeze before the next morning.  Seems like we haven't had the manual out for at least two days so it must be time, ha ha.  We have a bay heater for the water area but have no clue how to use that, let's see page 345 says........

There is lots to see here and the landscape is beautiful.  This is ancient Apache Indian area where Geronimo and Cochise would evade their enemies or the cavalry and when we road up to the National Monument site we understood why.   This is also the area where they filmed the "Lone Ranger".   The rock formations are incredible.  At the peak it was 9,798 feet.  We took the motorcycle to the top so you can see why I have all my leathers on - freezing cold up there!!!  The crazy part was we followed a guy in a motorhome up to the top - very narrow, winding, twisting road!!!! 

The next day we went for a ride down to Tombstone which is where the famous gunfight with Wyatt Earp was held in the O.K. Corral.  Lots of cowboys here!  Giddy up.

Our RV park was a nice spot and is the only park in the United States to have its very own Observatory.  Butterfield RV resort.
There are two Astronomers who reside at the park and offer viewings for free at night!!!   So one night we went and saw the Moon, Orion Nebula, Betelgeuse, Rigel and Jupiter with its moons.  This has to make the most unusual amenities at a RV park, and we definitely think the coolest we have seen!

As much as we would like to stay here longer and do some more exploring we are moving up and central where the elevation will fall considerably, so it will be warmer at night.