Kartchner Caverns, St. David, Tombstone, & Bisbee AZ

We didn’t really make plans for Fall Break this year. However we took a day trip down south to see the Kartchner Caverns. We’ve talked about it for years but never made the trip. We felt it was a good time to go on Saturday.

The weather was pretty stormy and we worried our plans would be washed out..but our prayers were answered the the weather couldn’t have been more perfect or beautiful that day. We only got rain when we were driving down and driving back home! It was wonderful! 🙂

Jared photoshopped himself in the pic…He’s hilarious! 😛

They had a garden and the hummingbirds were everywhere. Alayna was fascinated. 🙂

This cartoon was on a butterfly tank inside the facility. Jared thought is was really funny.

That’s a big sloth!

Walker couldn’t get over this statistic!!!! It is pretty crazy! 😛

Can you hear me now???!! LOL! They had some fun interactive things for the kids to do while we waited for our tour.

Soda straws are the coolest formations. This was just a model of one. You are not allowed to take anything but your person inside the cave. They stress over and over that this is a living cave and they are working very hard to preserve it. You can’t take cameras, purses, backpacks, nothing!

These pics are from the internet. We toured The Round and Rotund Room.

This stuff was soooo cool it was called a drape. It looked like art!

This is the huge Kubla Kahn. It’s quite impressive. They say these formations grow 1 inch every 100 years. That has been forming a REALLY long time!!!! You just have to see it in person!

This formation was my favorite. They call it bacon. It looks exactly like bacon!!! It blew my mind! Hahaha!

Of course we had to stop in the gift shop. Alayna loved this cute hat.

The cave is 72 degrees and 99% humidity…this is what humidity does to our hair!!! LOL!!! 😀

We headed further south after our tour to show the kids where some of the heritage is in Benson/St.David.

This store was my 3 times Great Grandmother Margaret Ann Taylor Goodman’s. If you want to read more about her life you can click here. 🙂

We stopped at the St. David Cemetery. There used to be a beautiful wrought iron sign above the entrance. I was heartbroken to see it’s no longer there. 🙁

We showed the kids their Great Grandmother Donher Smith Bernal’s plot. We then told them the other family names to look for. Goodman, McRae, Merrill, etc. They liked finding names they recognized. 🙂 It made me feel good to share some family stories with them and that they could put an image with where their ancestors put their roots down as they were asked, “To settle the waste places of southern AZ”. 🙂

A little further south we stopped in a little town you might recognize called Tombstone.

We thought we’d grab a bite to eat real quick….turns out..it was a 2 hour ordeal. It was PACKED that day!!!!

While we waited for our table this guy across the street kept us entertained. 😛 He was a riot!

The kids each got a sarsaparilla. 😛

After we ate we had to get our picture taken. 😛

I love it! 😀

Then we caught a little gun fight in the streets and headed to take a coach tour of the town to get some more history in. Eli wasn’t a fan of “learning” on Fall Break. hehehe!

Alayna adores horses. She loved every min. of this tour!

It was getting pretty late in the afternoon and I had mentioned to the family that there was a mine tour in Bisbee. We headed down south a bit more to see if we could catch the last tour.