Yesterday, we visited Kartchner Caverns State Park and had a 90-minute guided tour of one of the top "living caves" in the country. Due to very strict conservation efforts, no photography is allowed in the caves, so you'll need to look at the park website to get an idea of the beauty of this wonderful place. The caves were only discovered in 1974, and the folks who have developed it have learned from the many mistakes that have been made at other cave sites that are opened to the public and eventually ruined due to the infiltration of excessive light, oxygen and other contaminants. We were very impressed with how the caves are managed and preserved, and knowing that such grandeur and beauty exist just beneath the surface of a very non-descript piece of the earth is mind-boggling and intriguing.
On Friday afternoon and all day today we attended the Benson Bluegrass Festival, and had the opportunity to hear some excellent bluegrass bands from all over the West.
Here's a video of one band doing the classic banjo and guitar duel made famous in the 1970's movie "Deliverance". The filming may not be the best, but the music is fun to listen to.
We've had fun staying in our third Escapees Co-op RV park, and this is the nicest of the three by far. Escapees.com is the RV club that we joined last summer in order to have a legal mailing address and domicile in Texas, among other benefits. Although we're considerably younger than most members of Escapees, people are very friendly and welcoming to us, as strange as we may seem.
Many people live full time in these Escapees parks and build small casitas that provide them with extra living and storage space beyond their mobile homes and trailers. Some of the casitas are quite tasteful and have given us ideas for creative ways to create a home without such a high overhead and carbon footprint.
These parks are really a form of intentional community, and we admire these seniors who have advocated for the rights of RV'ers and created fulfilling community-oriented lives for themselves.
Tomorrow, we head to the city of Tucson, where we'll see an old friend and visit two intentional communities, Terra Sante and Stone Curves Cohousing. There will be more news from southern Arizona soon, so come back and visit when you can!
My brother lives in Tucson, and I visit him once a year. Tucson is one of those places that I *think* I could adapt to living in, if I could get used to having two growing seasons.
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