Sabino Canyon, Part Deux

Since we were in Sabino Canyon last, we said we wanted to go back to do the Phoneline Trail.  Although we walked back last time, we just used the road as it was late in the day.  This time, we got there much earlier and took the tram to the top again.  From there, we started walking.

It is an absolutely beautiful walk - moderate grade 5-1/2-mile hike.  An assortment of photos.

Gerard, checking out the size of that rock.

Spring is coming and the wildflowers are blooming.  Some cacti are getting blooms.

 Gerard managing to traverse the creek, without getting wet is the trick.

Sabino Creek - beautiful little stream.

 It was an absolutely gorgeous hike.  It took almost 3 hours, and was absolutely worth every moment.

When we returned, we showered up and had cocktails with our neighbours, Bev & Roger.  End of a terrific day.

Escape to the Islands

Today we hung out at the RV resort.  It was a very nice day, again.  The resort here has an "Escape to the Islands" day.  There were several activities going on, and it was all kicked off with a parade up and down the main street of the resort.  Entries were the various clubs/groups that make up life here.

We all plunked our chairs down at the end of our street to enjoy the parade.

The flag-bearers - notice the 2nd flag.

I'm not sure this is really a club here...but I liked it anyway.

The various clubs usually had a golf cart all decked out.  For those of you not familiar with RV resorts, MANY people have golf carts to use as transportation within the resort.  This one was for the Bridge Club.  The sign says "Fun Bridge".  I've played Bridge a few times...and I find it an oxymoron..."Fun Bridge".  Ha.

I'm not sure of the club here, but it had the Jamaican Bobsled Team!  Oh yeah, it was an escape to the islands day.

Here's Bev, our neighbour.  She is part of the card club - she and her husband like playing cards.

Oops...the fire truck was a little late.

This was our group sitting at the end of our street.  The one sitting with his hand raised is Roger.  That's Bev's husband, and he's the one who has looked after Tibby when we've been away for a long period of time.

As I mentioned, there were several events going on during the day.  Our plan was to partake of their casino night in the auditorium, which we did.  After our street happy hour, we went there as it started at 5 pm and was running until 9.  Roger and Bev were looking after the Roulette table.  The deal was you paid $10 to get in and you got $2,200 in funny money to spend in the casino plus a ticket for door prizes.  You could buy another ticket for $2,000.  There were lots of games including poker, black jack, spin the wheel, ring toss, beanbag toss, car race, and 2-3 other games.  A fun night.  We left for dinner part way through, then went back to finish off the night.  You had to be present for the door prizes, and we ended up buying 3 more tickets with cash winnings we had.  We won a necklace.

All in all, a great event.  Proceeds of the casino went to Habitat for Humanity.

Biosphere 2

We got up and were on the road shortly after 9 a.m. this morning.  We arranged with our neighbour to look after Tibby because we couldn't take him with us, and it was going to be a long day away from our RV.

We were thinking "Biosphere 1" must have been another spot at one time and they've re-created "Biosphere 2".  Well, it's true there is a Biosphere 1 ("is" is the operative word).  Biosphere 1 refers to the Earth.  So this one and only place has always been called Biosphere 2.

Biosphere 2 is located about an hour north of Tucson at the foot of the Catalina Mountains, only on the other side of the mountains from Tucson.  We arrived there and were able to join their 11 a.m. tour.  This was built as a completely contained biosphere, totally sealed off from the outside world.  8 people lived in here for 2 years and had to sustain themselves with only the tools within the biosphere.  They had to grow their own food, they had some chickens, goats, etc.  They had lots of experiments to do as well (their work).  The bottom line, they spent a lot more time farming, and a lot less time working on their projects, which was frustrating for them.  But they did it.

Now it's totally a research facility owned by the University of Arizona.  It has 5 ecospheres in here, regulated by 2 acres of plumbing and air movement - rainforest, ocean, marshland, grassland, and desert.

This is the main building where most of these were.

This is where the original 8 did their farming.

This is where a "lung" is housed.  Because it was totally sealed off from the outside world back in the early '90s, they needed a couple of these lungs to move air through the complex.

This is the ocean.

The rainforest.

Frankincense given to the biosphere by Oman.

Grasslands

Desert.

This is the back of the "farm" area.

All in all, quite the place.  It's worth a tour.

After we left Biosphere 2, we continued on up north to Mesa where my cousins are living.  We stopped in Florence, Arizona, for a late lunch and found this nice little Mexican cantina.

A little water feature on the patio.

A shot of the outside from across the street.  Very nice.

We arrived at Kathy & Don's before they got back (she is very much into quilting and was doing a training session with a renowned quilter giving classes in Mesa).

We spotted some of their paraphernalia outside their RV.  Al Sawatzky - are you envious?  The lounge chair.

The oven mitts.  True Saskatchewan Roughrider fans.

And here they are - Kathy & Don.

We had an afternoon drink with them then went over to Laura's for dinner, who is about 5 minutes away.  A wonderful dinner and evening with all of them.

Back to Pima

This morning we went back to the Pima Air & Space Museum to do the boneyard tour.  The boneyard tour is on the U.S. Air Force base here in Tucson.  Believe me, we hear those new, young pilots training, almost daily.  And several times a day they're flying overhead.

The "boneyard" is a collection of military planes resting out here in the Arizona sunshine.  They're here because they can sit right on the ground for years without decaying in any way.  The turf is hard enough with no threat of sinking without having to pave the field (cheaper).  Many are protected from the sun with a "skin" they put over parts of the planes.  Some are flown out of here again, some end up being torn apart for parts for other planes.  Could be anything.

We thought it was also a commercial plane boneyard, but that's not so.  It's all military, and planes mostly flown since the Vietnam War (the museum was mostly dedicated to older planes).  You can see some of the planes out in the field. 

This is an invisible plane - an F-117 fighter.  You can only see the wheels and stairs to the cockpit.  Difficult to spot by the enemy!

The day started out completely cloud-covered, and raining!  That doesn't happen very often.  As you can see, the clouds are breaking up.

So I picked up my new camera card.  Lots of room to play with now - should have done it years ago!

Long day coming up tomorrow, so I probably won't blog until the following morning.

Another Hike

Well, I think we've now pretty well covered the Robles Trails across the road from us.  They're great trails - also used by mountain bikers.  And, I think I need to buy a new card for my camera.  My old one just doesn't cut it any more.  4GB was a lot at one time!

So here we are out in the desert again.  It really is beautiful in its own way.

This guy was trudging along.

We did the Sunset Pass Trail and the 360 Vista Trail, which essentially form a loop.

You wouldn't think cactus would be so photogenic, but the saguaro are very majestic.

And tall.  This one must be 25-30 feet.

A valley of them.

We're still debating what to take in tomorrow - perhaps the Pima Aviation Boneyard.  We are apparently going to have our coldest day tomorrow - 60F (about 16C).  We'll see.  And I know it's nothing compared to what you guys at home are getting.  We're really hesitant about going home because of the weather.  Yikes!  Who wants to go home to that?

Having said that, we have already started planning our trip home.  Can't believe it will be 1 week tomorrow we leave here.

Pima Air & Space Museum

Yesterday we trundled off to the Pima Air & Space Museum, which is only about 10 minutes from where we are, near the Air Force base.  I was feeling a little better, but still not up to par.

This place is full of planes of all shapes and sizes, many used by the armed forces, and they're segregated by those used in World War II, or Vietnam, or even some more current ones.  There are some "famous" planes here, as in those used by the White House, or a movie has been made with it (e.g.) Apocalypse Now.

Here's one of the smallest planes ever built.

There are planes shown in 4 different hangers, but then their yard is full of planes too.

This plane, called the "Giant Guppy" was used to transport rocket equipment for NASA.

I think this one was used by Presidents Kennedy and Johnson.

One hangar was dedicated to the space programs.

This is an authentic moon rock.  Very tiny - encased in glass.

This is a simulation of the Apollo command module, but it was used in the movie with Tom Hanks - Apollo 13 because it so authentically represents the module.

 We didn't go to the "boneyard" because they don't operate those tours on the weekend.  But we can go back any time to do that.  We might.  It's a place where many planes taken out of service are stored.  All I know is you can see massive numbers of plane tails from a distance.  It sits on the actual Air Force base, so you have to do the tour - you can't just walk around.

Last evening, we caught Tibby using Gerard's playbook tablet.

I was working on a giant jigsaw puzzle with all dogs.  I finally got it finished as it was hard to do.  I'll pass it along to Ginny in my orchestra.  She loves doing these things.