Spring Break 2013

 This year for spring break we decided to keep it local and explore our own area. We chose to stay at the Ritz Carlton near Tucson for a few days, then we would visit Kartchner Caverns about an hour away.

Camping more like "Glamping" at the Ritz Carlton

"Rocky" the Resort mascot.  Trey named him "Rocky Torito"

Just hanging at the Ritz

Trey going down the super fun water slide, It was so fun I even went down. 

Derek about to make impact

We went on a hike in the mountains behind the resort.  It was a great adventure and view of Tucson.

  

Kartchner Caverns

We had a great time at the Ritz Carlton Resort.  The Customer Service is Amazing. When we drove up, there was a gate we had to check in right as we arrived on the property.  We then had to drive up to the resort which was probably a half mile.  As we pulled up to the actual resort, Someone opened our car door and said: "Welcome to the Ritz Mr. Johnson."  I guess the guard radios up and tells them what we are driving so they can greet us.  It makes you feel special/appreciated as a customer. The resort was beautiful and extremely nice. We had planned on doing Star gazing one night and we even planned our trip around the nights the star gazing was available.  When we went to do it, nobody knew anything about it, even though I had called the hotel and talked to two different people about it.  Anyway long story short.... misunderstanding with the staff they had discontinued it for a while, but it was starting up again that night.  The concierge found us and told us we could go etc. because of the misunderstanding, we came back to the room to find 3 sets of binoculars and a star map.  Wow, they take care of their customers.  I was just happy that the man came and found me and we were able to go look at the moon and a few planets through their telescope.  We would love to go back. 

I feel like Tucson gets a bad rap.  Everyone says how ugly, brown, and deserty Tucson is. Yes, it is, but it seems no more deserty, ugly, and brown than Scottsdale.  The town of Scottsdale is more upper class (snooty) their brown desert landscape is just called "Western"  Scottsdale claims itself to be "The West's most Western town".  I feel if you dropped a tourist off in Tucson, then in Scottsdale, they probably would not know the difference.  There are nice upper-class/wealthy areas of Tucson, so it isn't that they don't have nice homes/shopping there either.  I think Tucson just gets a bad rap.  Scottsdale has wealth, and the surrounding areas are the only thing that makes it pretty. Otherwise, it is Tucson's Twin.  Tucson is the underdog,  I want to give it more business.

We then headed to Kartchner Caverns which are amazing.  A preserved living cave with stalagmites, and stalactites, and has an interesting story of how it was discovered and preserved and made into a state park just a few years ago.   I had heard this place was well worth the trip.  Because we were traveling with kids under 7 we were only allowed in the smaller room.  We were afraid the tour might not be as good, or that we were missing the good stuff.  We were so wrong.  What we saw was AMAZING.  The cave was still quite large.  It was hard to believe what we were seeing was real.  Sometimes I felt like I was in a Dr. Suess Book, except these things coming out of the ground were natural colors and not Bright, Green, Purple, Yellow, etc.  The kids liked it too.  We would love to go back and take visitors.  Truly one of God's great creations.  I can't even imagine what the "Big room" cave looks like, nor could I imagine the first people discovering the cave, crawling around in pitch black.

Our Tour Guide, Nancy, was interesting.  Curtis and I said we hoped that was her very first tour.  She was so stiff,  boring, and awkward speaking to people.  She was nice and knew her info, but she needed to loosen up. Despite her, it was still a great tour.