Wednesday we had booked a tour through the 'Big Room' tour of Kartcner Caverns. There are two tours available, the Big Room and the Throne/Rotunda Rooms. We chose, the Big Room because it is only open about 6 months a year because of bat migration. We thought we would do the most rare tour.
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| Kartchner Caverns |
The cavern was not discovered until 1974 by a couple college students. They did not want it destroyed by graffiti and people stealing pieces of the cave so they told nobody of it for over 4 years. To make the story short, finally the owners of the property, the college kids and the state made a secret deal to make this a state park. It is a living cave meaning that it is still growing. The stalagmites and stalactites and all are still dripping water, so they really want to protect it. It is a humid 92 degrees all the time in the cave. You have to go through 4 or 5 metal vault type doors to enter, and even get a light misting to knock off any dust you may have on you.
You can not take anything in except your clothing. No cameras or backpacks or purses or anything, so the only pictures you can have is the ones you can find on the internet. That is why I will have limited pictures, because they are not mine!
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| Big Room |
This is an amazing cave! We were so impressed that although it is a little pricey to go, we have now booked the second tour for the Throne rooom/Rotunda tour for Friday. We figure how often are we going to be here? It is truly a magnificent cave and well worth seeing!
After we finished the cave we had a picnic lunch we brought and then we decided to go the Fort Huachuca. This is an active Army base just south of the caverns.
After checking in at the main gate we drove to the base cemetery. There are people buried here from the civil war. We also found gravesites for Indian Scouts that the Army used. Very interesting!
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| Fort Huachuca Cemetary |
On of the features that Patty's new camera has is to take Panoramic pictures. You put in in the pano mode and just hold down the shutter and move from left to right. Patty had never tried it so I thought the cemetery was a great place to try. Here is our first panoramic picture. It actually came out very good.
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| Panoramic Cemetery pic |
After the cemetery we went to the museums.
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| Historical Museum |
They had a lot of info about the Buffalo soldiers which was a black brigade based out of here. It is amazing patriotic these soldiers were considering how this country treated them! God Bless them!!
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| Buffalo Soldier |
There was also information about Geronimo and our relationship with Pancho VIlla. It is something how we keep repeating the same errors over and over!
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| Museum |
Across the street there is the Annex.
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| Museum Annex |
This was just a continuation of the museum.
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| Annex |
afterwards we went to the Military Intelligence museum. They had a drone from the 1960's. I didn't even know we had drones back then! We then went to the MI Library and the base historian told us that at 4:30 they would be doing the "Retreat". 4:30 was getting close. Retreat is bringing the flag down with revelry playing and they even fire a cannon!
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| Getting ready to lower the flag! |
Readying the cannon to fire!
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| Firing the cannon |
Saluting the flag. This was quite a moving moment and they do this every day. Patty and I were the only ones watching, but WOW!
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| Ole Glory |
They marched the flag out in unison, but see how the front guy is looking back? He was kind of high stepping. It was really cool.
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| Marching the flag down the steps |
They folded the flag and then one of the female soldiers carried it against her heart to put it away!
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| Folding the flag |
After the flag ceremony we went to the overlook. This is an area that was used in the old days to look out over the whole valley all the way to Mexico for any charging army's. You can see almost all directions from up here.
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| Overlook |
We had seen a blimp in the sky. Asking around we got several answers as to what it is.
1. It is fitted with cameras and is used as a training tool on the base.
2. It is used for border security.
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| Military blimp 'drone' |
Either way it has been hovering in the air since we have been here, and we have been able to see it for a good 30 miles!
Well that's it for today. We may be making some changes in plans to meet up with Bill and Jenn Gehr in Texas. It won't effect when we get back to Ventura, just where we go in Texas.
More on that later!!
Love you all,
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