Kartchner Caverns and More

The story of Kartchner Caverns is almost as amazing as the formations inside.  Two geology students discovered the caves in 1974.  They and the Kartchner Family, on whose property the caves are located, kept the caves a secret until 1988 when the State of Arizona established the state park.  These are living caves with formations still developing and the park takes great precautions to ensure that lint, hair, and skin oil have a minimal effect upon the formations.  We went on the Big Room tour and were awed by the cave bacon, columns, straw, and more formations.  We watched as tiny drops of water fell upon the “fried egg”.  Cameras are not allowed but check out www.AZStateParks.com for a video of some of the formations we delighted in.  After our tour, the "official picture" of the group was taken.

Gammons Gulch Movie Set and Museum

Jim Gammons has a lot of love.  His love for movies, particularly Westerns, began when he was a child and got to appear in a movie with John Wayne.  This was the beginning of a fifty-five year long career as a bit actor in countless movies.  Here he is playing his 100 year old piano.

His love for movies developed into the creation of his Gulch Movie Set.  From the original buildings he continues to create a town that has been the location for movies starring Glenn Ford, Dean Martin, Sam Elliot (his favorite actor), Kurt Russel and many more.  He has stories to tell about the good and bad sides of the people with whom he has worked.

With his own hands and with a lot of shopping trips to antique stores, hardware stores and garage sales, he has built, not false front, but real buildings that set editors have used in movies from the seventies up to yet to be released movies. 

Sunny decided to check out one of the furniture makers products.

Jim is a story teller and his stories about the fixtures, antiques, furnishings and automobiles scattered around his “town.” delighted us.  He is especially proud of finding good deals and items that were ready for the dump.  He also enjoys finding pseudo props at places like Walmart.

He has restored several of the cars on the lot.

We all had a fun time visiting Jim’s town.

The Cameo Ladies

On our first night Sunny, a Cameo Lady, visited our group to tell us about the many events happening during the 2015 Tombstone Rose Festival that we will be joining this weekend.  She invited the ladies to see the fashions of 1880s Tombstone.

These are the dresses worn by many of the women of the town.  Most of the Cameo members design and make their own dresses.  They have one dress or skirt and blouse to which they add vests, scarves, belts, and such for dressing up.

Miss Sunny modeled a Flower Pot Hat.  She explained the chateline hanging at her waist.  It carried implements that a women might need at hand, such a a thimble, keys or scissors.

Miss Priscilla is a Civil War Reenactor so her dress and accessories were of an earlier style than the rest of the ladies.  She started out showing us her underwear, the top, corset and petticoats worn under dresses.

She explained that the corset not only kept a woman’s figure small, it also helped in supporting the 45 pounds of dress material hanging from the woman’s waist.

Miss Penny showed her reticule (purse) that hung from her waist on a bent spoon.

Miss Caroline dressed as a shopkeepers wife or ranchers wife in a simple blouse and skirt that could be dressed up with a jacket or scarf.

The men were not left out.  They would wear plaid pants with a matching vest and “dress” that up with a black coat.

We ended our day with a great dinner prepared by Bonnie, one of the leaders of our group.