4. Kartchner Caverns State Park

We started our day at Kartchner Caverns by paying $10 to even enter the park. Upon entering the visitor center we purchase a bottle of overpriced water from the Gift Shop and then pick up our tickets at the counter. Now, keep in mind, this gift shop and ticket counter are both in the same open area. My mother in law takes a drink from her water and is told by the ticket lady that she has to keep the water capped while in the visitor's center. Mom immeidately complies and apologizes. Not more than a minute later, a man who works there rudely orders her to exit the building by yelling "You need to take your water and exit the building!" at her. What sense does that make? They sell you an overpriced bottle of water and then kick you out of the building for buying it. In the process of being thrown out of the visitor's center for buying a bottle of water, we are also informed that we can't bring purses, backpacks, cameras, food, drink.....ANYTHING into the caverns. This is all force fed to us under the guise of "preserving the caverns". The tour itself starts off by you waiting for a tram and guide. The guide makes an attempt at witty banter and then stuffs you into a golf cart train. You ride up a hill, get out of the cart and then are briefed on cavern "housekeeping" prior to entering the caverns. You are told that you can't drop anything, you can't touch anything. You can't touch the walls, you can't touch the rocks, you can't touch the edges of the floor. The only thing you can do is walk forward and if you must touch something, there is a guardrail that you can touch. The guardrail itself is elevated on a small wall...WHICH YOU CAN'T TOUCH. You are told that if you accidently brush up against something that you need to immediately inform the tour guide so that she can mark the area with red tape. She informs you that if that occurs she has to file all kinds of paperwork and reports, SO DON'T DO IT. She then tries to turn the children into informants by enlisting them to tell on anyone that they may see touching anything other than the guardrails. Upon entering the cave, the experience is rather underwhelming. The entire tour consists of being guided along a sidewalk with a guardrail and being constantly reminded not to touch anything. "And over here we have a rock...that you can't touch". "Wow, look, another rock that you can't touch. Now continue to walk along this sidewalk until the tour is over." Again, you are repeatedly reminded that Kartchner is a living, breathing cave and that even slightly touching anything could damage the entire eco-system. They didn't seem to be too concerned about that when they were blasting the area and clearing away all the precious rocks and stalagmites that were in the way of the tour sidewalks and benches.