Friday, December 27
Another weather front moving through southern Arizona.
Woke to rain and a multitude of puddles in the WMA parking lot I'd overnighted in. Got setup to move pretty quickly as I'd not unloaded either motorcycle last night.
Drove up to I-10 and experienced snowy driving conditions (luckily it wasn't sticking on the roads) until I got west of Benson. Then it was just rain, on and off, throughout the rest of the day.
Found Martha's co-worker's parent's home in Vail, AZ and spent a few minutes chatting with them after picking up the box Martha had sent to me.
They mentioned that the Colossal Cave tour, which was nearby, was worth the entry fee of $18 so after saying my goodbyes, I headed over there to see how their campground was set up.
After a couple of bad turns (signage is minimal, turn left towards La Selvilla for the RV spots), I finally found the RV campsite with it's five spots. All the spots were empty so I picked #2 since it seemed the most level.
During a brief period, I got geared up and rode Yagi, my Yamaha TW200 around the "rough roads" in the area. There's signs stating "rough roads", basically formerly paved roads which have been allowed to decay into potholed pavement. Not too bad.
Rain returned and it became cold and miserable while riding so I returned to camp and settled in for the evening. Even with the cellular booster, I can't really do much surfing and definitely not able to upload pictures so far. Maybe it'll be better when the weather clears sometime tomorrow afternoon.
Saturday, December 28
I arrived at the museum shortly after 8:25 AM after breakfast in the URRV. I was placed into the 9AM
cave tour. When time came, the guide (Jordan) came out and I was the only one in the tour group! Nice.
The original cave opening was a hole above the bar above
the Colossal Cave sign.
View of distant peaks from the tour staging area next to gift shop
Lighting conditions were pretty dim except where lights had been strategically placed to showcase a particular section or rock formation.
Note the broken off pieces of stalacite, caused
by uncaring cave explorers back in the day
The Fang, the cavern's largest stalactite
Looking at underside of "drape" stalactites
the spiny objects formed, in some cases defying
gravity, scientist still unsure how
Do you see the head of a bird?
The Sinkhole, aka Frank's shortcut....apparently Frank,
the cave's original discoverer after the native american tribe
which were the original finders of the cave; would rappel
down from here down to his working area.
You can, as many other couples have before, get married in
what is called "The Altar Room"
Old mining hat which used chemicals to produce light
Frank's Living Room, where he'd sleep during his
multi-day stays in the cave
The Silent Waterfall
Some scenes outside the cave area:
The cave entrance building and gift shop
From an overlook point near the gift shop, can you see Uma?
Memorial statue for the CCC workers who put in the infrastructure
to accomodate tourists easier, before you had to crawl on top of
rocks covered in Bat Guano.
After the cave tour, I pootled over to the Posta Quemada (Burnt Post) Ranch where one can rent a horse to explore the trails I think. There's also a museum but I didn't check it out.
There was an interesting item near the old railroad caboose though, a railroad telephone booth! I'd not heard of them before, but apparently:
I've my doubts the railroad put the phone booths inside concrete shells
like the one above; more likely its to preserve its contents
You can rent trail horses at the Posta Quemada Ranch
Update:
About four miles from the campsite where I rode with the laptop to
upload the above pics
Adding three pics from when I took Yagi over to the Saguaro National Park (Rincon Mountain District) in the afternoon. Rain/overcast skies resulted in just one pic within the park's scenic loop:
Better pic, due to temporary sunlight shining through the clouds, outside the park entrance:
