We spent last week camped at the Pima County Fairground in Tucson AZ. It was pretty modest accommodations, but it was quiet and friendly. And they had a sweet sign.
Amy and the girls attended the Tucson Rodeo Parade, the “largest non-motorized parade in the country.” I unfortunately had to stay back at the RV and work. The Rodeo is such a big deal in Tucson, the kids get out of school for a “Rodeo break.”
On Thursday afternoon, I risked financial ruin by blowing off work to join Amy and the girls at the Pima Air and Space Museum:
It was a very cool place, with more hangers of planes than we had time to see:
…and a very large outside lot of various aircraft from the past 60 years or so.
The big draw for us with this museum however was the “boneyard tour” of the Airforce Material Command just down the road:
This place is basically the US military’s storage lot for unused aircraft. Over 4000 planes and helicopters sit on about 2000 acres awaiting their next phase of service.
Some will be put back into service, others will be sold to allied countries, and the rest will be harvested for parts or scrap metal.
I was particularly excited to see this Boeing EC-135, which was one of the Looking Glass “doomsday” planes used throughout the Cold War:
Here’s why that fascinates me: from the time I was born until I was a young adult in college, one of these planes was up in the air for the sole purpose of maintaining continuity of government and control of the US nuclear arsenal if a nuclear attack took out command centers on the ground.
The only down side to this tour was that we had to experience it from within a crowded bus, but I still loved it and found it fascinating.
If you’ve been following us on this blog, you know we hike a lot. But on Friday we did something new: a night hike at the Saguaro National Park.
Here we are getting a briefing from Ranger Jamie on what all we’d be doing and seeing on our night hike:
I was unsuccessful at getting any good night shots, but I tried:
Another poor shot, but this is still interesting: under a black light, scorpions are bright green:
On Saturday we visited the Titan II Missile Museum in Green Valley, AZ. This was sort of a big deal for me, as it was one of the first destinations we listed out when we first thought up this trip almost 2 years ago. And ever since we visited the Minuteman missile silos in South Dakota back in June, I’ve been eager for more Cold War action.
If you’re interested, this explains the Titan II missile — and the Cold War in general — better than I can:
This has been de-nuked and emptied of its rocket propellant of course, but it’s otherwise how it was left when it was taken offline in the early 80’s:
Steps leading down into the control center:
At the bottom of the stairs, looking at the first blast door:
Jim was a fantastic tour guide. He was a fast-talking, no-nonsense guy with a thick New York accent.
Here’s Jim explaining the ins and outs of the control room. There was no shortage of processes and procedures for handling a nuclear weapon.
I was struck by the carpet, worn from countless steps spanning 20 years by people checking dials and readings, waiting for a call that fortunately never came:
One of my biggest fears growing up in the 80’s was World War III, so to see all this stuff was pretty sobering, almost sickening. To be in a place whose sole purpose was to launch a nuclear weapon, which would forever change life as we knew it, is simply chilling. (Btw, these missiles were about 650 times more destructive than the bombs dropped on Japan near the end of WWII.)
This is the underground hallway leading from the control room to the actual missile silo. Note the shock absorbers that line both walls:
Top side, it’s rather plain. Just antennas and such. And visions of mushroom clouds out there in the distance.
Crazy:
Later that afternoon, we hit the road and found a verrrrry remote campground (if you could even call it that) out in the Arizona grasslands. It took some work to get there — 4 miles down a rough unpaved road isn’t easy in an RV — but we made it just after sunset.
This was the most remote camping we’ve done so far on this trip, but having 2 or 3 other campers within eyesight kept it from being creepy.
Conserving our energy, we had dinner by a single light:
The sky was clear and the stars were out, so we did some stargazing with Emily’s telescope. Here’s my attempt at a long exposure photo. (That glow you see in the lower left is light pollution from Tucson over 30 miles away)
This morning, Amy, Em and I got up for a sunrise walk:
On our way back after the sun was up:
Just wanted to show how rough these “roads” were. Yes, we do off-road RV’ing!
More border patrol:
We covered some ground today: we left Arizona, drove through New Mexico and made it to El Paso TX. Along the way we saw a few little dust devils kick up. Looks like those can get pretty bad:
We made it to El Paso and got to spend time with Jake and Melissa Pryor who used to live in Indy. We’re looking forward to spending more time with them and their little girl Kaine this week.
We don’t make reservations (keeps us flexible) and that has never been a problem. Today, however, our luck ran out. We’ve got our eye on a spot that should be opening up tomorrow, but for tonight, we’re boon-docking in a casino parking lot next to a horse track within eyesight of the Mexican border.
This trip never stops being interesting.