Tucson had so many opportunities to learn. We barely had time to squeeze in the top activities.
We made it to the Pima Air and Space Museum which was pretty fascinating. We knew to buy the tickets for the tram around the boneyard when we arrived.
I’m so glad we did! We rode a two car tram for about an hour while we toured acre upon acre of various planes. We saw the first nuclear bomb carrier, the Glass Eye (a 24 hour-in-the-sky plane staffed with generals during the Cold War), an early Air Force One, and countless other notable planes and helicopters. The retired Air Force pilot that served as the docent was a great source of information.
I’m sure Caden would say the highlight of the visit though was getting to fly a F-15 similator. (To be fair, he shot down all the Russians jets attempting to blow him up. The ex-pilot who ran the similator was impressed. I guess video games are good for something.)
Once Scott made it back, we hit a few other highlights. A couple of months prior, we had been to the McDonald Observatory. The University of Arizona is really the only place that makes the large mirrors for the huge telescopes. In fact, they are also making the mirrors for the Giant Magellan Telescope. Since we all loved Chile (but hadn’t made it to the Aticama Desert) and all loved our McDonald Observatory visit, we decided to tour where and how the huge mirrors are created. Informative and fun, I think we all were made to appreciate exactly how much glass, work, and time goes into making even a single mirror.
The kids learning about just one of the Giant Magellan Mirrors being created.
It’ll be another couple of years before they complete the remaining mirrors for the Giant Magellan Telescope. We hope to go down and see it in the 2020s given the opportunity.
Scott had learned that the Biosphere 2 was also located in Tucson.
The tour in that place was incredible as well. It’s hard to not be impressed with seeing virtually the five main biomes of Earth in a single place. Knowing that it was man-made and that scientists lived there completely enclosed for as long as they did made us all appreciate how much science went into the place. University of Arizona has taken over the stewardship of Biosphere 2. I think when the kids saw how involved in science and space-exploration the university is, it suddenly became an interesting place to consider as an option in their future.
A real boojum tree inside the biosphere!
We spent a couple of other days in Tucson gearing up with some Target runs, hanging out at the pool, and goofing off. One afternoon the kids went to an organized scavenger hunt in the RV park, but no one else showed up. The organizer agreed to let them paint pottery and then use the face paint as well. The kids made the deal that they would color each other’s faces, not tell what they were coloring, and that neither could wipe off the paint until bedtime. I was impressed that they stuck to their guns once I saw the end result.
Caden colored Keali’s face first, obviously. She made him “into a princess”.
One other extremely interesting thing we did was go to the Titan Missile Museum.
This is the only site remaining in the area of missile silos that were destroyed when Reagan negotiated with Russia (USSR? Soviet Union? I get the time of each confused.) We were able to actually go down into the silo and see the command center. Again, we lucked out with our docent. He was a retired military guy who actually had active duty in the silos for three years. He was incredibly insightful and knowledgable. The key take away from the visit was that if there was to be a nuclear attack, the silo was a great place to be holed up in.
I was picked to do a mock-launch of the nuclear missile. He didn’t know he picked the only pacifist in the room…
With Caden’s help, we mock-ended the world. My reward was this key.
We ended up extending our Tucson stay by two nights due to high winds north of Phoenix. Our last night there, the small trash bin outside of our front door caught fire after some very dead (but evidently not all the way dead ashes) lit up some styrofoam. Fortunately we were leaving the next morning so Scott was going in and out of the RV putting things away. After only being indoors for about five or ten minutes, he walked out to flames almost as tall as him. Two fire extinguishers and a water hose later, we were able to extinguish the fire. Some trim on the RV was melted and the trash bin was no longer recognizable, but we were all safe. Thank goodness we had purchased two new fire extinguishers just a couple of days earlier.
Where the bin sat is visible as is the melted trim. Just inside that slide is the propane-run refrigerator. Lucky is an understatement.
The only activity we wanted to do in Tucson that we weren’t able to do was to go to the Mt Lemmon Observatory for night-sky viewing. Unfortunately some weird weather going through the area made the temperatures below freezing in the evening. Unprotected and with only warm weather clothes, we had to bail out of the stargazing. I hope to do it next time we are in the area.
And the next day we were off to northern Arizona.
