To the Bat Cave..!

Last Friday night we had some overnight guests at the old Bertoglio hacienda. Pat's twin Pam and her husband Jeff came in from Pennsylvania. Also billeted with us were Pat's sister Sharon, brother Bob and his wife Karen and sister-in-law Jane who was accompanied by her 8 year old grandson, Dylan. Dylan's grandma had taken him to the toy store where he bought (with his own money) an Lego Star Wars spaceship which he and I began to work on right away. I'm not as good at these new-fangled Legos as with the old-school ones!

Pat whipped up some of her famous and delicious tortilla soup and we all ate. That night we got out the Wii video game and made our arms sore playing sports; bowling, tennis, and baseball. We also introduced Jeff to "Guitar Hero". We sat around and watched old 16mm home movies of Pat's folks' trip to Hawaii and second generation "hot rod" races.

In the morning after a hearty breakfast of scrambled eggs, bacon, pancakes and waffles we all piled into cars and after the arrival of yet another sister, Diana and her husband Lou, and caravaned 45 miles and minutes east to tour the famous Kartchner Caverns. You may not know that Pat's family is related to the Kartchners, the original owners of the land where the caves are located. Lois Martineau Kartchner was Pat's dad's oldest sister. There are two caves to visit but one closes down for a few weeks every year as it turns into a "bat nursery" which cannot be disturbed. So we went through the other tour (the second time for Pat and me) and everyone seemed to really enjoy it. The ranger did require that all the contents of Dylan's jean pockets be carried by an adult (which turned out to be me). They keep a strict control of what could possibly be left in the cave. So I carried Lego R2D2 and Luke (and his light saber) along with a marble egg and stand and two sea shells. Pat says that the ranger (a lady) had to have been a former schoolteacher to know that if and 8-year-old boy had something in his hands, he had stuff in his pockets that could be potentially permanently installed among the wonders of the cave.

After the tour we watched the visitors center movie and got back into our cars. Jane and Sharon and Dylan drove on to Tombstone to tourist around and the rest of us headed back to Tucson. There, Bob and Karen and Diana and Lou headed back to Phoenix and points north leaving Pam and Jeff with us. We persuaded them to stay the night and took them to Midtown Molina's for some good Mexican food (what you have to do in Tucson with out-of-town guests.

When we got home we played Mexican train (a domino game... not really a must with out-of-town guests) with Scott when he came home from work, ate ice cream and generally stayed up too late and laughed a lot. It was very fun visiting with all the relatives. And Pam and Jeff talked us into going on a cruise with them next year! They have been a couple of times and have raved (like every other cruiser anybody has ever talked to) about the experience. We are going to the western Carribean. We are very excited and told Pam to pay the deposit when they got home before we changed our minds! Please come back for more visits, you family folks! It was such fun and too short!