A high old time on Kitt Peak

It was another fine day in the Old West.  The day started with my weekly Men’s Bible study at the resort at 8 a.m. I’ve met a nice bunch of men and the number has grown each week. Today there were about 18 men at the study.

Joan at the Kitt Peak Observatory Vistor Center

Following that I returned to the trailer where Joan was not only stirring, but up and at ‘em.
Since we arrived here Joan has wanted to make a trip up to Kitt Peak, which is the only National Observatory in the world. Not that there are no other observatories in the world, but the United States is the only country to designate this one mountain as the location of a National Observatory.

And to be clear, it is not the place of one observatory, but a group of separate observatories scattered over 200 acres on the top of a 7,000-foot mountain located in the Tohono O’odham Reservation, which is the second largest Indian reservation in the country.

Joan looking at the surface of the sun

In fact, the National Observatory was almost not built there because the Tohono O’odham tribe at first declined the use of the mountain owing to its sacred meaning to its people. Only the intervention of a University of Arizona astronomer who invited leading members of the tribe to another observatory to view the moon through the lens convinced the tribe that this was a noble use of the mountain.

Seeing the moon close up through a telescope, a moon that is an object of worship to them, inspired the tribe to give a rubber stamp to the idea and construction of the observatory complex back in the 1950s.

A large number of leading universities, including Michigan and Michigan State University, are partners in the mountaintop complex. Because much of the work is done at night there are dormitories on the mountain with warnings that visitors should be quiet so as not to disturb “day sleepers.”

Out in the haze is Tucson

When we arrived there we saw how far apart and how much walking would be required to see all the telescopes I asked and received a special pass to allow me to drive Joan, who is having difficulty with her knees, to the individual telescopes.

We signed up for the tour guide at 1:30 p.m. but used the time before the guided tour to head to the solar observation telescope where we were able to look at the sun close up through a filtered telescope. So close that you could see small flares (well, small is probably a relative term) leaping up for the surface of the sun.

Then we toured the large building that houses a larger solar observatory which is literally built into the side of a mountain. We were told that sometimes the folks working there will invite visitors in to see the lab close up, but today was not one of those days.

The tour started with some interesting history on telescopes and the theories of the universe, most of which my retired high school science teacher wife already knew.

Yes, that is snow

The walk to the 4-meter (which means the polished glass mirror for the telescope is 158-inches in diameter) would have been about 15 minutes up a steep hill, so we drove ahead of the tour group. While waiting for the group to walk up the hill to the telescope I took some great photos of the vistas from the top of the mountain.

Even though Tucson is a good 50-plus miles away you can see the city from the mountain. It would have been a better view if there hadn’t been some haze in the air. The road up and down was a curvy, 25-mile-per-hour, 12-mile two-lane highway.

After the tour we drove back to the solar observatory hoping, but failing, to get an inside view.

Then we drove to the 2-meter telescope just to get a comparison with the larger one we saw on the tour.

It doesn't look like much, but the food is good

With Joan’s science appetite satisfied for this day we headed back down the mountain.

On the way back home we decided to try a little Mexican restaurant that several people in the park have told us about. It’s not much to look at from the outside, but “Poco & Mom’s” did not disappoint. The prices were reasonable and with the warning to watch out for the hot sauce we ended up having a very nice dinner and it was done very quickly.

By the time we left at 6:10 p.m. there was a line out the door (they also have a drive-thru take out window that was backed up as well) waiting for tables.

If you want to see some more photos of today’s mountaintop experience scroll down.

More photos from mountain top

Joan inside the many ton donut that was used to test the 4-meter mechanism before they installed the real mirror

Michigan and Michigan State are two of the major universities involved in the complex

Joan touching a meteorite

Inside the solar observatory

A look down at the windy road up to the mountain top

A view of the complex from the 4-meter telescope site

Joan looking at the 4-meter telescope

A diagram of the solar observation complex which is built into the mountain

The above ground part of the solar observation building

The bonnet is a hit and so are the Doo Wop Divas

Joan’s bonnet has been the source of much discussion around the resort today. While the younger female members of her family (namely her daughter and niece) are not big fans of the bonnet many of the folks her at the resort stop Joan and ask her about it.

Joan (far left with bonnet) does her "jumping jacks"

And not in a negative way. “I love your bonnet,” one lady said. “Where did you get that beautiful bonnet?,” said another. Another man told Joan she reminded him of his Texas mother who always wore such a bonnet when she was outside.
I think I could have sold 20 of those bonnets today if I had them with me.  It may not be popular with the younger set, but the senior folks heartily approve of the bonnet.

Of course, each discussion either begins or ends with  a recitation of Joan’s Aunt Norma’s musings on the subject of bonnets.

“They are good if you are ‘on the bottle,’ “ Aunt Norma says. “On the bottle” means that you dye your hair and that the bonnet protects the color. If I heard that story once today I heard it six times. But Joan feels vindicated in her choice of hair covering.

While we are on my favorite subject – Joan – she encouraged me to stop by her Aquasize class this morning to take a few photos so that the folks who read this blog won’t think I am the only one getting some physical activity in each day.

Joan goes to her class every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 9 a.m. with a group of folks who prefer their exercise pre-soaked.

Now, to be honest, I was a little apprehensive about showing up to a class full of mostly women in bathing suits to take pictures. The word “pervert” came to mind almost immediately. Joan assured me I wouldn’t be the first husband there to take photos so I showed up for the beginning of the class.

After finishing the photo shoot one of the ladies invited me into the pool, but I let her know that I had already done my exercise time in the fitness room.

Joan and her bonnet in the pool

I’ve attached a few of those photos here as proof of her activity. With the bonnet she is easy to spot but hard to see, if you get what I mean.

In the late morning we went to the craft fair that occurs here every other Wednesday and bought a few trinkets. I had my camera with me, but forgot to take pictures.

Later in the afternoon we went to the post office to mail off some income tax information to our accountant.

For dinner Joan whipped up a “Crock Pot Italian Chicken” dinner which was really, really good. Joan likes using the crock pot for dinners as it leaves us free to leave the trailer while our dinner cooks in our absence.

As long as I don’t have to cook, the meal is always superb.

A fuzzy photo of me and the "Doo Wop Divas"

After dinner we had tickets to a 7 p.m. performance at the resort of the “Doo Wop Divas,” a quartet that relives those great girl groups of the 50s and 60s.

It was real “groovy” and included one of my favorite songs, the Lesley Gore classic “It’s My Party and I’ll Cry If I Want To” and many more.

After the concert the girls posed with me for a photo, but I think Joan got nervous with the camera and they came out a little fuzzy, but fun all the same.

To see another fuzzy photo of me with the Doo Wop Divas, scroll down. I’ve also put a photo of a plaque we found outside the post office near out resort memorializing the location of a fatal train wreck. Kinda weird, I thought.

A couple more photos from today

Joan's class exercises

Joan working in the pool

Me in a fuzzy photo with the Doo Wop Divas

Kind of a gruesome reminder outside a local post office

A new hike, this time in the snow above Tucson

Me at the upper trail head

Well, I thought all the snow in Tucson was gone, but the hike I went on today put me right back in the middle of the snow.

Tuesday is the challenging hike day and today’s trek had several interesting difficulties, not the least of which was some ice and snow along the trail.

The hiking group meets at 8 a.m. in one of the meeting rooms here at the resort and we form up carpools (I was one of the drivers today) and we get maps to our trail head destination and then head out.

Today’s Bug Spring trailhead was about 7 miles up the Catalina Highway on the road that leads to Mt. Lemmon. To do the one-way hike and still be able to get back to our cars we left one vehicle large enough to carry all the drivers at one end of the trail and then drove to the upper trail head which was at about 6,000 feet elevation.

Through the looking rock

As the crow flies (OK, it would be a very drunk and erratic crow) the two trailheads are about 4 miles apart. The trail between them (clickon this link to see the trail) is, depending on which GPS you believe, about 5 to as many as 6 miles in length.

The biggest feature of this trail is that the opening park was a pretty steep climb on very icy and snowy trails. Keeping the group together was a challenge as some of the shorter legged people were having difficulty navigating the fairly steep stairs that are built into the mountain on part of the trail.

The lower trail head sign

So the first mile was probably about a 10-13 percent grade, which is pretty steep. When we left the park in the morning the temperature was 48 on the valley floor. When we arrived at the upper trail head my Tahoe outside temperature gauge was 30 degrees.

I was about one layer short of actually being comfortable, but after hiking a little bit I warmed myself up quite nicely. Fortunately, I remember to bring my hiking gloves which were very welcome this morning.

Once at the top of the mountain the hike was relatively easy, except for a few very steep down grades, which I actually have come to dislike more than the up grades.

We started hiking just a little after 9 a.m. and finished the hike about 12:45 p.m. At the bottom trail head all of the drivers climbed into the remaining car and drove back up the mountain, retrieved our vehicles and then returned to the parking area and picked up our tired passengers.

Potluck dinner at the resort

While I was off conquering the Catalina Mountains, Joan was home using our trailer oven for the first time in the five years we have owned the RV. She made a berry cobbler from a recipe she got from our niece Jessica and it was a huge hit at tonight’s potluck supper in the resort ballroom

Potlucks are appropriately named as tonight about half the dishes brought were desserts. You’ll get no complaints from me, especially after a long and strenuous hike. I love a six course meal that includes five courses of desserts.

As I write this at 7:20 p.m. my calves are still burning from today’s hike. But the views were outstanding and if you would like to see more photos from today’s hike just scroll down.

More photos from Bug Spring Hike

We gather at the upper trail head before heading out

Up a snowy and icy trail

Looking back down at where we just came up from.

Looking ahead at the trail

Me at a small stream crossing on the trail

Our first rest area

Looking back toward Tucson in the distance

Another view of Tucson

My lunch view from my rock seat

Looking out between the rock formation

Our group at lunch

Some pretty rock formations (Hoo-doos they call them)

Heading down the non-snowy side

A major fire burned this area four years ago

It's (Wart) Hog Heaven here in Tucson

It’s been a quiet couple days here in the park. On Sunday, we started the day with church, which is always a good thing and then we decided to head to a movie because the temperature was cool and the winds were howling.

Our big adventure today - Staples

Since last Wednesday there has been a major golf tournament going on here, but the weather has been less than friendly to the golfers. As it is turning out this week would have been much better for a golf tournament.

Anyway, we headed to a nearby movie theater with winds blowing at nearly 50 mph at times on Sunday afternoon. With temperatures in the 40s it seemed much, much colder.

A lot of other people had a similar idea but we were able to get tickets for the 2:45 p.m. showing of “Zero Dark Thirty” which was a really, really good movie. As Joan pointed out to me later this is the first year that we have seen almost all of the Academy Award nominated movies. (Les Miserables, Argo, Lincoln and Zero Dark Thirty).  By the way, I accurately predicted that Argo would win. OK, that’s not such a big deal since a lot of experts predicted precisely the same thing.

Once back home we had “tube steaks” (hot dogs) for dinner and we settled in for a quiet evening at home. We watched several episodes of our new favorite show – “Duck Dynasty” – but tuned in for the last half hour of the Academy Awards to see who won the big awards.

On Monday I was up early and did 50 minutes on the treadmill and 20 minutes on the elliptical at the fitness center. I worked out with weights and then headed back to the trailer to clean up.

Joan spent her early morning at her Aquasize class and then we watched a little of the ongoing Jodi Arias’ trial that is going on in Phoenix.


The Met Life blimp

In the afternoon we headed to a nearby Staples where we did some copying for our income tax and bought a couple mailing envelopes.

I was thinking of my Dad this afternoon as A-10 after A-10 (affectionately known to pilots as a Wart Hog) was taking off from the nearby Air Force base. I mentioned something to Joan about it being a great day to be flying a jet around southern Arizona.

“Like Hog Heaven,” she said. It was a great pun.

Currently at the Tucson International Airport a World War II B-29 – FiFi – is on display. I was going to try and make a visit today, but ran out of time. Maybe Wednesday.

On the way back from Staples we say the Met Life blimp flying around the air force base. The blimp was in town for the golf tournament but I believed it was grounded due to yesterday’s high winds. Not sure what it was doing flying in A-10 Wart Hog air space, but it wasn’t shot down so I guess it was OK.

In addition to the constant flights of the A-10s (there is one operation squadron and two training squadrons of A-10s here) there are frequent flights of C-130s in and out of the air base.

Tomorrow, I head up to really high ground (5,000-feet plus) for my next 6-mile hike.

It was a day to play caveman and cavewoman

Joan at Colossal Cave

As you already know I found my camera. So today we headed out so Joan could enjoy some time outside the park.

The trail I took yesterday was relatively flat, or as flat as anything is around here, so we headed back to the Gabe Zimmerman Memorial Trail so she could at least walk the first part of it. Joan loves to touch and feel things and of course she had to try and touch some needles on some cactus with the inevitable result.

We did about a half mile round trip on the trail, which is part of the 800-mile Arizona Trail.

The weather was cool, but not a cloud in the sky and it was really a beautiful day. When I went to take Joan’s photo on the trail the camera informed me, and not is a nice way, that I had forgotten to reinsert the memory card, which was 12-miles away back in the trailer.

So after the hike we returned back to the trailer to pick up the memory card and head to our next destination – Colossal Cave Mountain Park which is just a few miles from our resort.



Looking into the abyss

So with the memory card reinserted we headed back to Colossal Cave.

At the cave we decided to take the one hour cave tour, which was a challenge for Joan as it involves 363 steps in the dark cave. It is lighted so that isn’t a problem. Joan is short enough that most of the overhead obstacles are not a problem, not so with me.

The cave, which had been discovered by Native Americans centuries ago is a fairly recent (1800s) discovery by latter day Americans. The history of the cave including its use by gold bandits as a hideout, were all part of the tour.

Following the tour we ate our lunch at a picnic table overlooking a beautiful valley filled with Saguaro cactus.

The view from where I parked the car

On the way home we stopped by a Fry’s store that we heard was nicer and much easier to get in and out of then the one we have been using. The store was beautiful and we have decided that is our new shopping stop.

We arrived home tired, but ready to eat a dinner of leftover spaghetti and enjoy a quiet night at home.

There are more photos below.

More photos from Colossol Cave

We're one of 100,000 visitors this year

A view from our picnic table

Joan (and the bonnet) at our picnic table.

Some Stalegmites (or tites, or whatever)

Up the stairs is the room they use for small weddings in the cave

More cave

We believe this is a desert squirrel near out car