Flat tires, a former Broadway star and some online frustration

A 1913 Model T on the road

Arizona roads and my Tahoe’s tires are apparently in a war with each other. On Sunday, Joan wanted to spend a couple hours at another Indian Reservation attraction – the Casino del Sol – and I wanted to do a little shopping so we headed out after church.

I dropped Joan off at her favorite Native American cultural center and I headed to the Target Store to take advantage of a $16 cargo short sale. After picking up a couple pairs of shorts I stopped at a nearby Starbucks to pirate the Internet there so I could post on the blog. Remember the vomiting puppets? I thought you might.

We had dinner at the casino and then we headed home. Joan started with $200 in her purse and she went home with $217 so not a bad day for her.

Water on the Patagonia Trail

On Monday I headed off for a new hike. The drive to the trailhead was nearly as long as the hike but on the way we spotted a Model T caravan and stopped at a rest area to ogle one of the cars. The owner of the car said he has never taken it to a car show, but prefers to take it on long road journeys.

The Model T one of 126,000 built in 1913 (imagine a 100-year old car?) was in very good shape. The owner had modified it so that it had a more modern electric start and halogen headlights as the old lights were tough to keep running and to replace.

An abandoned mine along the trail

After about 10 minutes of looking at the car we were back on the road headed to Patagonia – the trailhead location – and a trip down a portion of the Arizona Trail.

The easy hike group had its biggest attendance of the season and that was with three of the regulars missing. We had new folks from Idaho and the State of Washington on the hike.

This portion of the Arizona Trail ascends up from Patagonia using an old jeep and mine trail and is part of the 800-mile famous trail that starts at the Mexican border and continues all the way to Utah. It is similar to the idea of the Appalachian Trail but obviously the terrain is very different.

An Arizona Trail marker

On this section of hike you can see the remains of former mines, prospectors were looking for gold, silver and copper and also get a good look at the back side of Mt. Wrightson, the high peak that I have hiked twice.

Some of the hills are pretty steep and were a challenge for some of the hikers although we all made it up and back safely. Our lunch stop was a very nice tree-shaded spot by a small creek that had water from snow melt flowing through it.

Considering all the high temperatures of the last week we were pleasantly surprised to find so much flowing water along the trail.

Another abandoned mine

On the way down we crossed paths with two “thru” hikers. These are folks who have taken a couple months off from their normal life to hike the trail from start to finish. There are stores and supply stops along the way so you don’t have to carry everything with you at the start.

One young man (46 is young to me) was carrying a pack with 40 pounds and was very happy to find that there was flowing water in this part of the trail. If you have the proper filters you can safely drink the water.

As I mentioned it was a long drive, which includes a Border Patrol inspection station, and we didn’t arrive back at the Voyager Resort until well after 3 p.m., which meant I didn’t have time to get cleaned up and take Joan to the store. We both opted to have me clean up rather than go shopping.

Meet Me at Maynard's check in at the Congress Hotel

Monday night we headed to downtown Tucson for “Meet Me at Maynards” again and had a great time. I took a couple photos of the gathering at the Congress Hotel. This hotel boasts a stay by the infamous gangster John Dillinger.

After we learned we lost the raffle we headed to dinner at El Charro’s but it was extremely crowded and the wait was an hour so we opted for another restaurant, the name of which currently escapes me.

One of the desired t-shirts you have to earn

On the way home we stopped at the store so Joan could do her shopping.  For unknown reasons our cable is currently out at the park, a situation that apparently only affects the people living on 9^th Street. I tuned in our over-the-air antenna on the trailer and we got a very good signal from some local network stations so we got to see the news.

On my docket for later today is to call whoever runs the parking garage where we had the car parked for Meet Me at Maynards. We checked into the garage at 4:59 p.m. and out at 7:12 p.m. The first hour is free, the second hour is supposed to be $2 and the third hour another $2.

Heading up the trail to Bog Springs

The stupid machine charged me $7 to park. We called the afterhours complaint number and all they said was call the in hours complaint number, which we will do today. As I told Joan it’s not so much the money as the principle of the thing. At previous Meet Me at Maynards we paid $5 to park and now I am thinking I got ripped off then too.

OK, just call the call back from the garage. Because I punched in at 4:59 p.m. the first hour was free until 5:59 p.m. Then for that one minute I got charged $2 for the next hour. Then when the clock ticked 6 p.m. I was then charged the flat $5 fee for night time parking.

Of course I pointed out that I was actually charged $2 for one minute and actually charged for parking in the daytime and nighttime. I plan to call a local TV station to make them aware of the gouging going on in a local public garage.

Gotta have the rest stop "Thumb's Up" by Jim

I won’t even try to describe here what is going on with our new hot spot and the extremely poor customer service provided by Straight Talk. It would take three pages to describe the frustration of dealing with a foreign telephone call center and trying to explain the problem. For now we are using the park’s hot spot to do our Internet business.

OK, here’s one issue. The customer service representative told me that to repair my broken hot spot they would “e-mail” me a Fed Ex certificate so I could mail the item back. When I reminded them that I had no Internet and couldn’t read my e-mail, that concept seemed difficult for them.

I made it to the top too.

Of course I could go to the hot spot in the resort, but then I would have no way to print the FedEx document.

On Tuesday I headed out for yet another hike I had never done here in Arizona. The “hard” hike group headed to Madera Canyon (same place you find the Mt. Wrightson trailhead) and we met at the Bog Springs Trailhead. (Last week was Bug Springs, so an amazing coincidence, eh?)

One of the great views from the trail

This is a difficult hike both up and down. Up because there is an almost constant uphill climb, in some places on a very steep and narrow trail. We lost one hiker in the first mile because this was his first hike of the season and he was no prepared for the lung capacity needed at the start altitude which was 4,500 feet. The summit of the hike is nearly 6,500 feet, so a 2,000-foot elevation change in just about 2.5 miles.

The hike does afford some outstanding views of the Green Valley and Suharita area and from some of the higher points on the hike you get a wonderful view of the Pima Copper Mine Tailings ponds that we visited just last week.

We lunched it our turn around point which was Kent Springs. We had a snack stop at Bog Springs, the point the trail was named after. The trail is very wooded in spots and we were surprised to see as much running water as we did considering the warm winter we have been having.

Did I mention it was steep coming down?

After about ½-hour lunch break we started the trip back down to the parking lot on an extremely steep jeep road. And when I say steep I mean in some parts the rock and gravel trail is at a 40-45 percent grade which makes footing very difficult.

A couple folks slipped and fell, but there were no serious injuries or bleeding.

The hike took about four hours and was a very satisfying hike. I’d love to do it again, but maybe in a couple years.

Joan spent the day cooking and making a delicious apple and Baby Ruth salad for the Tuesday evening potluck and we had a pleasant time meeting with our new friends there. I was ready for the meal after the day’s hike.

We love Market Daze

After the dinner I collapsed in my chair and slept through most of NCIS and Chicago Fire.

On Wednesday morning I was up early and got in an hour workout at the fitness center.

Back at the trailer I picked up my computer and took it to the ‘hot spot’ and found a couple frustrated folks there complaining that the wifi was not working. I tried my computer and they were right, it wasn’t working.

Remembering a fix I had used at home, I boldly walked to the modem box, pulled the plug and then re-plugged it in and voila! the modem reset and we were back online. They thought I was a computer genius and I didn’t tell them anything that would change that opinion.

Rick, the general manager, led the Doo Dah Parade

After Joan returned from her aquacise class she got cleaned up and we headed to Market Daze, the second to the last one in the park. Found another couple trinkets we couldn’t live without and bought them.

On Wednesday night we went to the concert in the resort -  “The Gershwin Songbook” - which was very good. Jack Neubeck and Rebecca Carlson were the lead singers in this Lonely Street Production and both have previous impressive credentials.

One of the parade entries

Jack Neubeck has performed more than 2,500 times on Broadway including parts in the original productions of “Evita” and “La Cage aux Folles” He has CDs and has a very professional voice and a great stage presence.

On Thursday, I attended my Bible Study and then we attended the 1 p.m. lecture at the resort. An FBI agent spoke about Internet scams and Identity Theft. It was a very interesting talk and one that left you wondering if there was anything you could do to protect yourself from people who want to steal your identity.

Who let the dogs out?

Basically, the FBI agent said the best thing you can do is continually check your accounts and make sure you check for small charges that you didn’t make. Apparently identity thieves are making a fortune charging small amounts on a large quantity of credit cards hoping none of us will notice small credit charges.

After the talk, we piled into the car and headed to a nearby shopping center to get haircuts and Joan got her nails done. After which we did a quick grocery shopping excursion and then returned home for dinner.

Friday morning started with a workout for me and aquacise for Joan and then the first of two big events of the day was the “Doo Dah Parade” in the resort.

The softball team entry

Our friends and neighbors dressed up in strange costumes and rode through the park putting on funny exhibitions and generally enjoying themselves.

I spent the rest of the morning cleaning out the trailer “basement” a storage area under the bedroom part of our trailer. This will save me some time later in our stay as we prepare to head home.

The biggest event of the day was the “Voyager Night at the Races” Friday afternoon in the ballroom. In addition to the senior citizen Pinewood Derby, little homemade wooden cars raced on a sloping wooden track, there were many food vendors from different activity groups at the resort.

A lot of good "sheets" in the parade

We had the rib dinner put on by the wood shop folks, but we also had root beer floats from the Bocce folks.

The races took about two hours and some of the cars were very creative and fun to look out.

Now there’s a few lingering notes that I have forgotten to write.

Recently we watched a show and they referred to a person as a “King pin.”  If I could do my life over I would just like to once be referred to as a “king pin.”  Hopefully an honest “king pin” if there is such a thing. Just sounds like a cool title.

The crowd waits for the racing to begin

When we heard the Tohono O’odham lecture the speaker told a funny story about the origins of the name “Pima” Indians. The Spanish coined the term when the most often verbal response they received from the Native Tohono O’odham was “pima.”

The term Pima was then applied to the Indians, but what was funny is that in the Tohono O’odham language the word “Pima” means “I don’t know.”

During a presentation at Pima Community College one of the students said to the speaker: “I guess that means I go to “I don’t know” Community College.

The track

We’ve been so immersed in Native American culture recently I think it has affected Joan’s speech patterns. In referring to a terrorist suspect she mentioned that perhaps he would be tried at: Guam a Tomo, by which I think she meant Guantanomo Bay. 

She has also invented a new word ‘boomarooni’ which she claims she has used all her life. I think it has to do with the noise made when something is dropped, but I could be wrong.

Today we are going to a huge event at the University of Arizona - The Festival of Books. We hope to pick up a couple sign novels or non-fiction for the Family Literacy Center auction.

Vomiting puppets and a mouse meal

A pretty door along the Meet Me at Maynard's route

Before we get into our activities I need to get a couple dreams off my chest. One of the things my father and I have in common is weird and vivid dreams. Unfortunately (or fortunately, as the case may be) I rarely remember the dreams but this week was an exception.

Two dreams I woke up from I immediately shared with Joan (which does no good because she is such a sound sleeper that even when I wake her in the middle of the night, she really isn’t awake) but in explaining them to Joan it helped me to remember them later.

I repeat them here in the hopes that someone can help me interpret these dreams.

Joan in front of "Griffen"

Dream No. 1: I was wandering around a familiar place – not sure specifically where – with two puppets under my control. They appeared to be Muppet-like creatures with me holding the strings. Each time I pulled on the strings they both vomited. Gross, I know, but that’s what they did. Large volumes of vomit came out of their furry mouths each time I pulled the strings.

Joan’s interpretation was that I was recently telling her about a time that me and a couple buddies were in the Alex Theater balcony in Glendale, California and quietly opened a can of vegetable soup (I think we got this idea from one of my relatives) made vomiting sounds and then poured the soup down on some unsuspecting folks on the main floor. We got into serious trouble and were asked to leave the theater after that prank.

And just to be clear I was there when it happened, but I neither opened the can nor poured it over the balcony. I was asked to leave along with about six of my closest friends.

Scenery along the Maynard's walk

Dream No. 2: Joan and I were visiting an acquaintances’ home (I know the acquaintance and it may or may not be a family member so I’m not mentioning them here) and for dinner we were offered “fresh mouse meat” or “spoiled shrimp.” Even in the dream it seemed an odd and difficult choice and fortunately I woke up before I learned our final decision.

Joan has no interpretation for the second dream as we have not been talking about eating mouse meat or spoiled shrimp.

Now back to our regularly scheduled blog.

“Meet Me at Maynard’s” was our Monday activity, but we later learned out we missed out on a great “Fun Band” night in the ballroom here at the resort. Sometimes there is just too much going on at the same time here.

Starting up a steep mountain along Bug Springs Trail

Joan was ecstatic that she was able to walk the two-mile course at the MMM night in downtown Tucson. Wearing her new hiking shoes she kept up a good pace and was really happy to complete the course in just about one hour flat. It is great to see her doing so well with her knee recovery.

Maybe next year I can get her to hike up Mt. Wrightson with me. After the downtown hike we had dinner at Diablo Burger and each had a burger. The hamburger meat was out-of-this-world (of course it cost $11 for a hamburger) and instead of a traditional bun used an oversized English Muffin. It was a very tasty burger.

On Tuesday I headed out for one of my favorite hikes, a trek on the Bug Springs Trail, which last year was snow and ice covered and extremely treacherous. This hike has a very steep opening act, a rise of about 1,000 feet in a little less than a mile. No snow or ice this year.

A more tranquil part of the trail

After the lung busting first part of the hike, the rest of the trek settles into a more gentle up-and-down that presents tremendous views. The first part (the steep part) is in the shade, but the second part of the hike is in the open with the sun beating down on you. The views are great no matter what part of the hike you are on.

After getting home and cleaning up, Joan had cooked up a meatball dish to take to the “Hiker-Biker” potluck which is the season-ending party for all of us who hike and bike at the resort. Some of the hikers are also bikers, but there are a large number of folks who only take part in one of the activities so it was a chance to meet even more new people.

The view from our snack stop

The park has three separate bike groups, a long distance road group, a short distance road group and a medium distance desert biking group. None of them appeal too much to me as yet, although I might give it a try next year. Falling off a bike into a cactus is not something that I would look forward to doing. And it does happen. Plenty of flat tires too.

Wednesday started with my workout at the fitness center and Joan at her aquacise class and then I made a run to the post office to mail a check to our well guy who finished repairs at home at a cost much less than we had anticipated, so that was good news. It’s always good to be on the right side of your well guy, trust me. He refers to us a “good, loyal customers” and he gives us a nice break for being quick to pay.

My snack perch over the ledge

Anyone who is willing to work outside in the current weather should get paid on time, in my humble opinion.

After getting home from the post office, Joan and I headed to the ballroom where all the local activity groups were displaying their wares. I could have displayed my “Eagle” with the “Easy Bleeders Wood Carving” group, but I decided my meager creation was not up to the standards of some of the other offerings. I’ll put up a couple photos here so you can see what I’m talking about.

The quilters, silversmiths, ceramic, photography, sewing, genealogy, stain glass, wood working shop, scrapbooking, glass fusion and many more activity groups were on hand to show the many beautiful things they made this winter. There are truly some very talented folks who stay here.

It wouldn't be a hike without a 'thumb's up" from Jim

There is also a couple writers’ groups in the park, but I get all the writing fun I want just doing this blog, so there is not so much of an appeal to me in that. But who knows, maybe next year I’ll stop in.

Joan is interested in bringing our family photos down next year and taking the scrapbooking class so she can put them into some kind of order.

I spent the rest of Wednesday working on my Bible study and also making phone calls for my next blood drive in Michigan. An American Legion brother is handling the drive in person, but I am still responsible for setting everything up and making the calls to potential donors.

Me at the high point of the Bug Springs Trail

Thanks to my sister-in-law Patty, who sent me an article about Buffalo wings, I talked Joan into making Buffalo style chicken wings for dinner and then at 7 p.m. we went to Ash Wednesday services here at the resort.

Not sure what is in the wind, but there has been a virtual air show from the National Air Guard base at the Tucson International Airport and from the Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in the last few days. Plenty of A-10 Warthogs and F-15s buzzing around the airspace this week. In addition we have seen lots of Blackhawk helicopters and C-130s flying over the resort as well.

Last year when one of my hiking mates complained about the noise from the jets, I just replied that I enjoyed the daily air show. “Consider it the sound of freedom,” I said.

Heading down

Since my last report on the Big Horn Sheep, two more have been turned into lunch by local mountain lions. Of the 31 Big Horn Sheep released into the mountains, only 16 remain. The other 15 have become Purina Mountain Lion food.

In one of the great euphemisms, the Game and Fish Department spokesman said the mountain lion responsible for the most recent deaths was “removed.”  The media explained that the lion was shot and killed.

There is growing angry sentiment among the animal rights folks that it is time to round up the remaining sheep and remove them from the mountain lion buffet table. I’ll keep you posted.

My wood carving group - great name eh?

On Thursday we went to a great lecture given by a former F-15 pilot who was a career Air Force Officer who commanded a squadron at the nearby Air Force Base. After his retirement from a 25-year career as a fighter pilot and commander he went to work for Raytheon, the local missile maker here in Tucson.

His lecture was a detailed look at all the air-to-air and surface-to-air missiles produced by Raytheon. It was especially interesting because the speaker had fired a number of the missiles during combat missions in Iraq and had also fired a number of them in training missions.

Some more of the carvings

This guy stepped right out of central casting for a fighter pilot and just close your eyes and imagine your image of the perfect fighter pilot and you have this guy. His wife came with him and he gave a moving tribute to her and all the families and the sacrifices they make in being connected with a career service member.

For one thing, he and his wife had lived all over the world and moved 18 times in 25 years. Most of the work for those moves were done and supervised by his wife.

After the lecture Joan did laundry and I did my usual mule duties in hauling the dirty and clean clothes back and forth between the trailer. While Joan did the laundry I worked on making my blood drive calls (I have 300 people to call every two months to remind them of the North Branch American Legion blood drive). Made a good dent in the list and finished it on Friday. We had a quiet night with grilled cheese and ham sandwiches and a side of tomato soup for dinner. Yum.

Some of my friend Hap's work

Friday was also a quiet day with most of the day spent around the trailer and we went to a very funny show at the resort Friday night. Dan Bennett, a comedian and juggler, was the featured entertainer and he was very funny and skilled at what he did. His running commentary was hilarious, but his juggling was even better.

One of his better jokes: “Men, why do we always ask for sex, but never ask for directions?”

My other favorite was “Did you know that 5 million people tuned in to television to watch President Obama’s inauguration and only 7 of them had to miss work to see him?”  There were equal jabs at Republicans, but I can’t remember them right now.

The pottery group

Living in a senior complex like we do in the winter presents one with a variety of ways to get injured or killed. I’ve already mentioned the many warnings I received about being on the roof of my trailer and how a man died last year after he fell off his roof onto his head.

I’ve almost been run over by golf carts and bicycles and hiking up and down mountain trails presents several options for injury or worse. There are poisonous snakes, steep cliffs and the simple strenuous act of climbing up a mountain are just a few other ways to face a little danger.

This Saturday morning, on the way back from the shower, there was almost a collision between a golf cart and a bicycle at an intersection in the park.

The stain glass group

There are also subtle signs that things are starting to wind down in the park. For one thing, there are many more empty RV spaces. The trash and recycle bins are not filling up as fast as they were last month and the concerts are having more and more empty seats.

By next month at this time there will be a lot fewer folks, including us.

So Saturday afternoon we drove to the Tohono O’odham Cultural Center and Museum in Topawa, Arizona on the Tohono O’odham Indian Reservation. This is the follow up to the lecture we heard here at the resort a couple weeks ago.

Jewelry making

The drive is about 90 minutes from Tucson and goes past Kitt Peak which is on the Tohono O’odham Reservation.  By the way, the name of the tribe is pronounced Ta-hone-ooh Audumn (like the word autumn with a “d” instead of a “t”).

As it happened we were there on the day of the cultural center’s open house and were one of maybe only five non-tribal folks at the open house. There were a couple cultural presentations that we attended and they invited us to join them for a free lunch.

The Tohono O’odham reservation is the second largest in the country. Only the Navajo Reservation is larger. The reservation has 11 districts and the people have three distinct tribes (the mountain people, the river people and the desert people – which was the area we visited.)

Horses running loose on the reservation

The cultural center is the result of gaming money and is truly a beautiful building. From what we heard there is a bit of a tug-of-war among elders whether they want to encourage outside visitors. So far the elders who are discouraging a market campaign to attract “outsiders” is winning, we heard.

On the way to the museum (and on the way home for that matter) we noticed that horses wander loose through the streets of Sells, which is the main town north of Topawa where the cultural center is located.

Of course Joan was ecstatic that she saw horses in the road to prove her theory and constant warnings to me about loose livestock. She made me stop and take a picture of the horses in the road.

Part of the Tohono O'odham museum grounds

One of the presentations we heard was about the efforts to recover Indian graves and artifacts which were looted over that past 150 years.

I believe I have a fascination with Indians – Native Americans – because I grew up with a grandmother who had a house decorated with portraits of all the great Indian chiefs. By the way, many of the Indians here call themselves “Indians” we passed several schools on the reservation which had names like “Indian Oasis” and the mascot for the high school was the “warriors.” So I don’t believe it is disrespectful to refer to them as “Indians.”

Unfortunately due to tribal customs we were not allowed to take photos inside the museum, but I grabbed a couple shots outside.

The mountain in the background is sacred to the O'odham

As we left the resort to head to the reservation we called OnStar for directions, but I didn’t know the exact address. When I unsuccessfully tried to say “Tohono O’odham Cultural Center” the nice caller finally asked me to stop pronouncing it and said:

“You don’t need to try and pronounce it again, I am a Native American and I know what you are trying to say.” 

Even then she couldn’t locate an address to the place so she sent us to the city center of Topawa, Arizona, which is quite a feat because there really isn’t a “city center” there.

Onstar also introduced us today to a new road designation. In Texas we had the FM roads (Farm to Market). The roads on the Indian reservation are designated BIA roads. It took us a minute but we figured out that meant Bureau of Indian Affairs Road.

A beautiful Saguaro

It was small enough that we were easily able to find the building standing out among all the little houses there. One thing we have learned and been told is that you must strictly observe speed limits on the reservation. They have their own police and they don’t take kindly to outsiders speeding through town.

Because we had the nice lunch provided by the museum, gratis by the way, we skipped stopping for dinner and headed home to watch the news. Once again the big news today was about those poor Big Horn Sheep in the mountains.

Protestors demanding the end to the Big Horn Sheep experiment were protesting at a hearing Saturday of the Game and Fish Department. Some were wearing Big Horn Sheep masks and others were chanting “stop killing lions,” while others had signs saying “We (Heart) Predators.”

Just remembered another of Dan Bennett's jokes: "If God didn't want us to eat animals, why are they made of meat?"

Plumbing problems 2,000 miles apart highlight this week

Our first rain in Tucson this winter

Well, for the first time in two months I can report a dip in the weather. At least, we have a prediction of rain, which for the local folks is a very good thing. As I write this Saturday morning we have cloudy skies and a light breeze and it does appear that a little rain must fall into our lives today.

Temperatures are expected to plunge into the 60s for a high so everyone around here was bundled up like it’s winter in Minnesota.

With the outside weather going sour today Joan has decided it is a sign from the Native Americans that we must pay a visit to Casino del Sol to pay our reparations to the Tohono O’odham tribe.

A 3-ton thick door in the Titan II control center

Speaking of the Tohono O’odham tribe, when last we left Grandmas Recess I had just finished Bible study and was headed home to clean up.

The Thursday lecture was a prominent member of the Tohono O’odham tribe – and although the man schooled us on the proper pronunciation of the name there are no letters or comparable syllables in the English language for me to try and write it here. Make a sound like you are clearing your throat and you’ll be close.

Two people always had to be on duty

The speaker, and unfortunately without Internet access I can’t give you his name, was extremely interesting, engaging and humorous. The tribe did not have a written language until 1985 when someone thought it might be a good idea to write down the tribe’s stories before they were lost to Western cultural influences. Before that everything was done orally as far as keeping history, etc.

In the days before America and the Spanish, the Tohono O’odham people ranged all over the Southwest and roamed freely between the mountains in the winter and the deserts in the summer. Seemed backwards to us, but they found food and water more abundant with that particular lifestyle.

Speaking to a room full of snowbirds, the speaker mentioned that his people were nomads – “sort of like you people.”  That brought a big laugh.

The missile launch console - "The Button"

Unfortunately, we had to leave the talk early because Joan had a nail appointment set up so we missed the last 30 minutes of the talk. We are planning a visit to the Tohono O’odham Cultural Center in the near future to do more study on these very interesting people.

In the days before borders his people roamed freely back and forth between what is now Mexico and Arizona, but since 9/11 that has changed although they do have special crossings and papers that allow them quicker passage to and from tribal villages north and south of the American border.

While Joan got her nails done I mailed a package for her and then brought my computer into the salon where they provide free WiFi to folks waiting. A nice perk for husbands.

The missile

We came home and Joan made a great new dinner, which was kind of a Mexican dish of ground beef, salsa and cheese over tortilla chips. It was yummy.

In our three visits here we have not visited the nearby Titan II Missile Museum or the Pima Copper Mine. Both tours have been recommended to us by resort friends and we decided Friday was the day we were going to do both.

The two stops are located about 6 miles apart in Suharita, Arizona, which is near Green Valley, all of which is to say they are about 20 miles south of Tucson on I-19 on the way to Mexico.

We stopped first at the Titan II Missile Museum which turned into a fascinating look back to a time anyone our age can remember.

Of the former 54 Titan II missile sites, the one in Arizona is the only one that was not blown closed and sealed up under a treaty with the Russians. Because we still don’t trust each other, the cover to the missile silo remains permanently locked open with a dummy rocket in place so the Russians can monitor from space that we haven’t somehow reactivated the site.

Artsy photo of Joan looking through the glass

Apparently Russia also maintains one site as a museum.

These sites were the proverbial “finger on the button” sites that promised “Mutually Assured Destruction” should the Russians launch nuclear missiles against us. “Peace Through Deterrence” worked for 21 years from 1961 to 1982 when President Reagan negotiated a partial disarmament treaty with the then Soviet Union.

And this scary sign

During the 21 years of service the missile silos were manned 24/7, 365 days a year with Air Force personnel who worked 24 hours shifts protecting the rest of us. Many of the spaces were marked “No Lone Zone” which meant that two Air Force personnel, usually one officer and one enlisted person had to be eyeball to eyeball at all times. This was part of the security system that didn’t leave the awesome responsibility of launching a nuclear missile to one person.

The equipment, though state-of-the-art at the time, looks pretty out-of-date by today’s standards. A bank of computers could be replaced by microchips that would fit into a device the size of a TV remote today, our docent told us.

To prevent an accidental launch there were plenty of safeguards and the docent showed us how the launch keys were set far apart so that it took two people to turn the keys to perform the launch. Both keys had to be turned at the same time (within three seconds) and held in the launch position for five seconds.

Looking down on the missile from above

As kids Joan and I recalled that we had been through nuclear drills in school. Once the launch was initiated it was not possible to abort the mission and once launched there was no way to call back the missile. Thus the elaborate security measures to prevent a bad launch.

The tour took about an hour and we enjoyed going down the 55 stairs into the control room of the silo.

I wanted to push “the button” but I couldn’t get close enough to the console to do so.

Back above ground they let us roam around the grounds and look down into the silo at the dummy missile. The missile silos were built for a single launch as the fire and explosive forces of the launch would turn the silo into a molten tube of metal if a missile was ever launched from them.

Open pit copper mine

It is a very good thing that none of the missiles ever had to be launched.

After the tour I grabbed our picnic lunch from the car and we used a picnic bench on the grounds to eat our lunch.

Now for the real reason we picked today for our great adventure. My membership to the Pima Air Museum and my two free guest passes to either the Air Museum or the Titan Missile Museum were set to expire on Feb. 28, 2014. That’s why we went to Pima Air Museum yesterday and to the Titan Missile Museum on Friday. 

My admission is covered under my membership and the two free guest passes got Joan in for free.

That was a pretty good deal for $25 last year.

A used $60,000 tire

After lunch we headed to the ASARCO (Pima Copper Mine) where we had 3:30 tour reservations for the mine tour.

This is a pit copper mine that has been in operation since 1959. They have dug enough dirt from the ground in this area to create several Panama Canals over the years. Employees work 12-hour shifts and the mine operates 24/7, 365 days a year. Workers work 7 days on and 7 days off.

With the cost of copper on the rise there is a lot of controversy in Arizona right now about the reopening of several copper mines. This particular mine is the only one you can really visit and there are no restrictions on photos or anything else on the tour.

You can see the trucks from a distance

Our tour guide – Ed – was very entertaining and took us to a couple of stops where we could look down in the mine and see digging and then into a building where the copper is separated from the rock through the use of pine oil bubbles.

Through some magic of science the copper sticks to the pine oil bubbles while the rest of the dirt falls to the bottom, separated and trucked to the desert.

Some of the cost of retrieving the copper is astronomical. The large trucks used to move the earth have tires that are more than 12-feet in diameter. Each tire (there are six on each truck) cost $60,000 each and have to be replaced twice a year.

The vat of "bubbles" collecting copper

The electric bill for the mine is $20 million a year, but the mine recovers enough gold from the mine to pay the electric bill each year, the docent told us.

Earlier on Friday I asked Joan what she was making for dinner. Her answer: “Reservations.” So we ended up at the resort restaurant for a fish and chips dinner which really hit the spot.

The predicted bad weather – our first in two months – arrived on schedule about 10 a.m. Saturday and we got some more bad news about the same time.

As readers of this blog know, I am not a big fan of plumbing. So we have been dealing with a lack of hot water in the trailer almost since we got here, so I contacted an RV repairman who lives in the park and he stopped by Saturday morning.

A rare crested Saguaro cactus

This is the same repairman who I called because our heater wasn’t working when we first arrived here and when he checked the problem was not with the furnace but with two empty propane bottles. I wrote that check with a sense of shame for not having checked the obvious before calling for help.

Well the water heater was just about as stupid.

The trailer is equipped with an outdoor shower which is a simple set up with a hot and cold water faucet and a flexible spray nozzle to be used as an outdoor shower. After exhausting the water heater potential problems, the repairman asked if we had an outdoor shower.

“Yes, we do,” I said. He unlocked the outside shower door and discovered that the faucets had been left on and the water shut off at the spray nozzle head. What that meant was that the cold water was mixing with the hot leaving us with just slightly warm water.

My completed wood carving

I’m sure my picture is featured prominently in the Plumbing Hall of Shame. That little problem cost just $10. To make me feel better the repairman, who splits his time between Arizona and Colorado said he was called on a similar problem said he learned of the outdoor shower problem from a couple in Colorado.

They had the same issue that we have had and they had the repairman drive 60 miles to their park to determine what went wrong. After exhausting ever other potential problem he made the discovery of the open faucet issue.

“They had to pay me for my mileage for driving 120 miles round trips.”

At the same time in Michigan we were getting calls from a neighbor that our front yard seemed to have sprung a leak. Where snow had been piled up there was now a pool of water bubbling from the ground. That almost always means a well problem.

Being 2,000 miles from home with a serious issue like that going on can be a little unnerving but we soon lined up the well guy who will replace a broken pipe on Monday. He will likely also tear up the front yard to a farethewell.

Two of seven Blackhawks in formation over the park

Ah, the joys of home ownership. People have told us we are lucky to have free water. Believe me when I say that when you have a well, you do not have free water. Quite the opposite.

So here we are with plumbing problems 2,000 miles apart. Now that’s a first. And may I say, I hope the last time that happens.

With plumbing issues sort of in hand, we headed out to the Casino del Sol on the Pascua Yaqui Tribal Reservation so Joan could continue her efforts to keep every Native American rich.

Unfortunately for me this casino does not have a simple game of Keno or something I can just sit and watch while Joan plays so I actually plugged a few bucks into the slot machines. By the middle of the afternoon I was down about $80. Then I hit a machine for a $205 jackpot and I called it quits and we left the casino a few bucks to the good.

Julian Wash hike sign

We stopped and picked up a Little Caesar’s pizza on the way home and headed to a resort production (all local talent) of Gilbert and Sullivans’ “Pirates of Penzance.

The folks worked very hard on the light opera and we thoroughly enjoyed the 90-minute play.

On a more positive note, I finally finished my "eagle" wood carving and a photo is posted above.

Another tourist sight we have been wanting to visit for several visits is Biosphere 2. (Biosphere 1, by the way, is Earth). This was an experiment that received a lot of publicity back in the early 1990s as a group of 8 earthonauts, or whatever they called them, were locked inside the large glass building with a plan to keep them there for three years surviving on whatever they could grow.

The original colony included goats, chickens (for meat and eggs) and pigs for the occasional ham sandwich. Unfortunately for the first group of volunteers there was simply not enough calories produced to sustain them and the experiment ended after two years and 20 minutes.

Biosphere postcard photo

A second group of folks were locked inside after some modifications from lessons learned from the first mission, but that experiment was aborted after six months due to a change in ownership and direction for the $150 million facility.

It is an impressive greenhouse of epic proportions. There are five separate biomes under the dome and we visited all five during our tour.

Now this is the spot where I would normally post a lot of great pictures of our visit, but it pains me to tell you that I forgot the camera back home so the only photos I have are the ones here that were taken of two postcards I purchased in the gift store.

The world's biggest greenhouses

I’m enclosing a link to more information on the Biosphere here so you can see more photos of the place. And here are a few more good pictures.

The tour took about three hours and we enjoyed it greatly. On the way home we made a quick stop at Trader Joe’s for some dinner.

Monday I went on my easy hike, which was the Julian Wash hike which is not my favorite hike. Actually it’s not even on my top 50 hikes, but it was a good 5.8 mile walk and so the exercise was good. Tonight we are going again to “Meet Me At Maynard’s” in downtown Tucson, but we’ll cover that one in the next post.