Day Eleven: I have no clever title

I'd like to give a shout out to people who aren't commenting but are apparently reading: 

To the lady with the new iphone - Kachow!

To the homesick AZ Native - At least you have your Wii back to console you.

My "Aren't they cute when they're asleep" photo for today comes from the big boys. We have found it best to let SBS go to sleep in our bed, then when both boys are out, we move him to the bed he shares with MG. This is how they ended up last night after we'd moved SBS. They remained in that position until they woke up at 6:10 (I'd set the alarm,) with MG whining "GET OFF ME SBS!" (Except he said SBS's name so it was more like SB-SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS with two hard syllables. PerkyMommy's Eyeroll of the Day.)

So, uhm, Daddy Doc had the camera on Manual Focus from his sunset pictures, so the bedtime pictures are out of focus. You'll have to IMAGINE how good they look in focus!

After more reflection on the past two nights, we're really glad we stayed in Tombstone for this segment of our trip. Benson is a Freeway Town. All the hotels are RIGHT on the interstate (I-10, the Santa Monica Freeway,) and there's just no personality to that area. Tombstone was right in the center of our goals for the area and the opportunities for dinner, scenery and tranquility in the evenings were ideal for our vacation. Even if Tombstone itself wasn't our favorite part of the trip, we are glad we saw it. It was never the goal but it was a decent part of the journey.

We were up BRIGHT and early this morning. When I made the reservations, the latest morning tour I could get for the Kartchner Caverns was 9:40, which meant we were to be there at 8:40. That's early for us! This was the earliest morning of the vacation - a 6 am alarm! Ouch! We survived.

We arrived at the Caverns in time to watch their movie about the history of the caverns. It really is a fascinating place with a great story. I'll give you the Cliff Notes Version:

Late 1960s, a guy goes looking for a sinkhole and finds it but there's not much to it.

1974, he goes back, finds it again, it's more interesting this time. He and a friend start to explore the caves they find by crawling 15 feet down into the sink hole then 400 feet laterally through a space 10" high and 2 feet wide.

They think they've found one big room. A year later they find the next big room.

Somewhere one or two years into this they approach the owner of the property. It's a "virgin" cave and they're on a mission to keep it from being vandalized like most caves are once the public finds out about it.

Owner of the land is anxious to protect it, too. They eventually approach the state about making it public park. Remember, they found it in 1974. They strive to keep it as much of a secret as possible.

In 1988, they publicize the caverns.

1988.

Today it is a very carefully controlled set of caves. There are several air locks at the entrances. They monitor the humidity and temperature in the cave and use humidifiers when needed. 

The cave is the only cave that is 100% wheelchair accessible!!!! This was very important to the designers of the walkways. Although they were very careful to minimize the human impact on the cave, they took great care to make the cave wheelchair accessible. 

And it was really lovely. All three boys enjoyed the tour, although CS was a cranky butt about walking. Yeah, he really wanted to be carried. Did I mention that this is not a "Cool" cave? It's rather shallow, so the temperature is very close to surface temperature. It was not uncomfortable, but DaddyDoc was getting really hot trying to carry him.

And we had a bit of a lesson about parenting and kids...

There was a boy and his mom on the tour,  the boy was just a tad older than MG. Now, to be fair, the child seemed like a friendly kid. But he provided me the opportunity to feel superior as a parent. One might even say Self-Righteous. (What? PerkyMommy? Self-Righteous? You're shocked, I know it.... Aren't you?? Shocked? Surprised?? Right??)

When we arrived at the gate to the park, the gate attendant told us: "You cannot take anything into the cave so you need to leave cameras, purses, cells, video cameras, etc etcetcetc in your car." There are signs all over the patio waiting area "Do not take these things into the cave:" There are lockers so you can stash yer stuff.

So right off the bat, you know it's going to be interesting when his mother is carrying her camera phone. It's not even in a pocket. She's carrying it. Yep, sure enough, first part of the cave, her phone RANG. It wasn't even on SILENT. The tour guide told her she needed to turn it off and she wasn't supposed to have it and she could NOT take pictures.

That's when her son got self-righteous with his ignorance. HE went off (he was 12, btw,) about how stupid it was that you couldn't take pictures. Why wouldn't they let you take pictures? Pictures aren't going to HURT anything. blah blah blah" And his mom didn't stop him or correct him of course. That was number 1.

Every time we stopped to listen to the tour guide, the kid was yammering away. Oh look at this oh look at that. He wanted our boys to stay with him and be his friends and that's fine and all, but friends shut up. Friends don't prevent friends from hearing the Tour Guide (#2) or be rude enough to yammer away and rudely make it hard for other people to hear the Tour Guide (#3). Within a short time, I had separated my boys from this boy. I didn't want to be rude to him, but I wanted my boys to hear what the guide was saying and learn about the caves.

Sure enough, the kid was talking out of the side of his mouth. He didn't know what he was talking about but he would give MG misinformation about the cave. I'm not even counting it as #4 because here's #4: We were near the end of the tour. We'd been in the cave for over 45 minutes. During this time we'd heard over and over again about the formations in the cave - drinking straws (which are baby stalagtites,) and how straws turn into Stalagtites. How Stalactites form Stalagmites. And how Stalactites and Stalagmites form Columns. We saw MANY examples of these and the tour guide pointed them out to us routinely. 

END of the tour, she shows us an almost touching pair of stalactites and stalagmites (not the first set, by the way) and the kid looks at her and says "Wow! How does THAT happen??"

WHAT DO YOU MEAN HOW DOES THAT HAPPEN? This woman has spent FORTY-FIVE MINUTES showing us these formations and repeating the story!!! Maybe if you shut up and LISTENED you'd KNOW!

And why did MY children know? Because when they were talking, I quietly, put my hand over their mouthes and redirected their attention to the tour guide. 

I realize my children are very smart cookies. But they also have parents who pay attention, provide a role model and direct their behaviors. There are times and places when it's fully appropriate to take and comment and ooh and ahh. And there were plenty of them on the tour, even. But not the entire tour. And it's one of those self-perpetuating things: Ok, yeah, my kids are smart. But when we help direct their behavior, it gives them the opportunity to get even smarter. 

OOOOH, yeah, that screams self-righteous, doesn't it? I kept looking at this little boy and thinking of the ways he reminded me of MG: He had one of those quirky personalities. Inquisitive but a bit know-it-all, too. Gregarious. Eager. When MG meets someone, he's ready with his life story and he'll tell you as much of it as he can get out in the time he's with you. This kid was a lot like that. But MAN, he annoyed me! And I'm always paranoid that MG will annoy other adults the way this kid annoyed me!! The tour guide was asking a lot of questions and MG raised his hand everytime. Well, at least when she called on him, he really did know most of the answers or came close to them. And because he did move to the front and pay attention to the tour guide, at one point in the tour, she gave MG her flashlight to shine through a super thin "bacon" formation on the tour!

After the tour, we got back into the car and planned out our day going to Tucson. We decided to get some lunch and visit Saguaro National Forest, the West side. Through the Downtown area of Tucson, along I-10, several onramps and offramps are closed for several miles. We needed to get off on Exit 259 to be off the freeway in time. Unfortunately, the freeway was very poorly marked. It said "Exit 260 Here" And it ended up being 260 AND 259. OOPS. We were stuck and couldn't get off. Oh and the gas light came on, too!

Eventually we got off to get gas but then we had to get turned around. No Left Turn. No U-Turn. No U-turn. Daddy Doc found his inner lightning McQueen and pronounced us stuck in Hillbilly Hell. 

Ok, we were finally turned around. We needed food. We found the road to Saguaro on the Map and headed there. But there was NO food on THAT road. So we found a cross-street to the next major road east which might have food on it.

That's when I saw it: WHATABURGER. OMG, we accidented on a Whataburger when we were looking for lunch. How perfect is THAT? 

I'll tell you how perfect it isn't: DaddyDoc said "Is it open??"

Yeah, not so much. Turns out Whataburger is being painted in anticipation of its grand opening. So. I picked up my camera and said "Well, I have to take a picture for David" and I did:

And then we ended up at Burger King, which did not have WiFi, by the way. More on that later.

Per the map, this new street would still get us to Saguaro but we were a bit unsure. I mean, we'd been royally screwed in the I-10 situation, right? About that time, we pulled up next to another white minivan and DaddyDoc said: Maybe we should follow HER. I turned my head to see that the driver of that minivan was wearing a National Park Service uniform. Uhm, yeah, following her sounds like a GOOD idea. And we did. All the way into Saguaro National Park!!

As an amusing ending to that tale, we arrived at the visitor's center after the other white van, which had government plates, pulled into the Employees Only area. We got out of the PerkyMomMobile and walked out to the visitor center sign to take the requisite "Picture In Front of the Visitor Center Sign".  As we got there, a lady ranger in a private minivan pulled up and offered to take a picture for us with everyone in the picture. We accepted her offer and she parked her van. After she took our picture, I asked "Were you the ranger in the white minivan?" And she answered "Yes, were you in that other white van?"

 

It wasn't an amazing coincidence but it was amusing.

We arrived at the center just as a slide show was starting so the elderly volunteer was really "pushing" us to go see it. (After we stamped our passports, of course.) We found out that we're now on a "trail" of National Forest Service sights called the Juan Bautista De Anza Trail. I don't think we'll have ROOM for another stamp in our Western Region section of our National Park Passports!!! These suckers are FULL. 

The slideshow was cute, then we came out to ask for the Junior Ranger Booklets for this park.

Now, I really do get a kick out of this program, but it's really inconsistent. Some parks/monuments make it So much easier than others. At the Grand Canyon and Petrified Forest, the boys had several pages to choose from but only had to complete 3 to 4 activities. At this park, the program for MG's age group was an 18 page booklet!!! There was a crossword puzzle AND a wordfind as well as several question and answer segments. It was more work than the Grand Canyon program! WOW.

One really neat thing here, though, was the "backpack" that the volunteer offered to let us check out. If I could've, I would've bought the backpack. It was that cool. (I might not have bought EVERYTHING in it, but I wanted at the very least the backpack.)

It had in it:

A clipboard

A laminated handout about animal tracks

Two sharp pencils with erasers stuck on them (In addition to the erasers already on the pencils.)

A zipbag of colored pencils

A zipbag containing several little $2 reference books about identifying: cactus, birds, mammals, petroglyphs, snakes, plants and more!

A rule

A pair of binoculars!!

We took the backpack and left the center to go to a short trail in the park. The little boys had one activity to work on at the trail, MG had several.

How many branches do you think that one has?

(Seven!)

Right now, as I type this, CS is being sweet. He's not SLEEPING but he's being sweet. But I can tell it will be nice to be home for him. His meltdowns are getting more consistent. He's pushing back against our "nos" much more often. He's getting a bit tired and boy did it show on that trail! He was NOT happy. He was NOT in a good mood. He did NOT want to walk. He did NOT want to look for footprints of animals. He did NOT want to be quiet so MG could find an identify a bird.

Eventually we went back to the Visitor Center and MG finished his activities. The ranger came over and reviewed their books with each boy.

I don't know why I feel guilty when they work with CS. I think it's because I expect rangers to be rangers, not child development experts. MG wasn't remembering answers to things he KNEW. SBS was remembering them, HA HA. When it was CS's turn, the ranger pointed to a picture of a cardinal and asked him if he knew what bird it was. He wouldn't answer so the ranger told him and asked him if he knew what color it was. He said "White." The ranger said "No..." and at that point, CS reached over to a basket full of plush animals and pulled out a cardinal "doll" to show the ranger.

Ah-HA! See, Mr. Ranger? He knows it!

(By the way, that's a bobcat puppet on his arm. He loved that thing. I almost bought him one... Almost.)

It was precious when the ranger got to the page of "Draw your favorite animal." CS and I drew a turtle together which he colored. He babbled like a brook telling the ranger all about his turtle drawing. He refused to say the oath with the boys, so I went to my place of guilt and started asking him questions so that the ranger could see that he had SOME understanding. "Do you touch the rocks? Do you pick the flowers? When you're on the trail, do you walk in the bushes?"

When it was all done, the little boys decided to use some of their money to buy Junior Ranger hats. No, I don't have photos of them, yet. It cracked me up. I think I was too surprised to get pictures, frankly. 

We got to our hotel during some rain. It was really just a sprinkle. The hotel is ok. It's older and there's a brand spanking new HIE across the street taunting us. (At the time we booked our reservations, it wasn't available.) It's not a big deal, I'm just spoiled now. This property is a bit older and the room smells like air freshener. The wifi, however, is awesome. 

Remember that the Burger King had no Wifi? Here's why I needed it: On Thursday night, we have an opportunity to have dinner at the Fairmont Scottsdale - WITHOUT OUR CHILDREN.

How is that possible? Doesn't the Resort Babysitting cost a lot of money?

Well, it does, but I met some people from nearby Chandler, AZ on the Internet...

Yes. I'm allowing people I met on the internet to babysit my children at a hotel in a strange city.

Now. Except for three people, every single person reading this is someone I've met on the internet. So you all know how it goes. But it still cracks me up. If someone else told me that they met a babysitter on the internet, I'd be very suspicious and thinking "Well that person is  a fool. Of course I've met great people online, but I've been around the internet a lot longer than most people so I know how to do it...." 

OOOOOH, Another PerkyMommy Self Righteous Moment!

Here's how to meet people from the internet:

1.  Find a very public location, such as a theme park.

2. Go to the theme park and say hello.

3. If possible, put together or participate in some sort of event/activity such as, say a scavenger hunt/puzzle type trivia event.

4. If the person in question gives you a stained blanket with holes that someone was going to otherwise throw away, and tells you it's a gift for your as yet unborn child, devise a system by which you can ditch said person immediately. This would not be a good babysitter or a person with whom one would want to spend much time. (Even if he says "Oh, she said she was going to fix that hole!" and really thought it was fixed already...)

Now, some people think it's freaky to have a team of scavenger hunt players make mascots of the event staff (although they didn't make any crew mascots so I guess that's one advantage of a person not being staff. Yeah, I know MovieBoy isn't reading this but I can't miss the opportunity to homage him.)

I was very naturally tickled by my Barbie Self with the Baby Bjorn and stroller. So when the creator of my Barbie Self and I were discussing my vacation plans and we got to the part where we're staying at the Fairmont Scottsdale and I was thinking about hiring a resort sitter for a dinner, she offered to babysit. I've met Creator of my Barbie Self several times and it turns out that we have several degrees of separation in common: Her husband and I attended the same high school (he was in the class behind me.) We also attended the same university. We're the same religion - not that it matters but it's a common bond especially because the bishop of this state is crazy. Our kids are all about the same age although hers are girls. But this strengthens our religion bond, too, because I totally got why she was worried when a certain event was going to possibly conflict with a religious ceremony for her daughter. Her mom lives in the same geographic area as my parents and we both have the same favorite deli/restaurant in town that we both go to whenever we can when we visit our parents. 

So all that means that I trust her to watch my kids. And the bonus for her is that her kids get to use the Fairmont pool and slides if, PLEASE GOD, there's no lightning.

Tonight I had to get to wifi so I could get to a certain message board and I could get to her phone number to tell her when our reservations would be. (Which I called and made right before I called her.) So dinner for Thursday is set. In addition, I have directions to please call her as we're approaching her end of town tomorrow  - she will give us the best route to take to get to the Fairmont, depending on the time and traffic patterns at that time. (It apparently gets a bit trafficky in the afternoons.

Super Duper Blessings, that is what it is. There are stupid people who don't know how to safely meet people from the internet but then these are the same people who would not know how to safely meet and trust people anywhere, if you ask me. The internet doesn't create stupidity, it just gives already stupid people more opportunities to express their stupidity, if you ask me.

For dinner we tried a restaurant we saw up the street called Rusty's. Each booth had a individual television on it, so we watched Deadliest Catch. SBS was cranky because he wanted to play around and find other shows to watch but tonight was the season finale so we're in the Deadliest Catch Zone. (Our hotel DOES carry the Discovery Channel so we got to watch it! Yeah! Captain Phil hugged his kids, we got to see the Heilstrand grandbaby/baby. Good stuff.)

I should have DD take a picture of my left shin. I'm fortunate that my body really never hurt too badly after the fall but the bruise on my left shin is big and swollen. I guess I should've iced it when it happened. Ooops.

I think that's it for tonight.