January 25, 2016

January 25, 2016

One of Aimee’s favorite things to do on vacation is ride a horse.  She has ridden on the beach, in the mountains, in Hawaii, and even in the Badlands, but never in Arizona, our home.  My sister being in town is a good excuse to try it here. 

After calling for a reservation, we head north to the little town of Oracle, AZ, grabbing a bite of lunch on our way.  Oracle lies on the north slope of the Catalina Mountains and is almost 2000 feet higher than Tucson.  The temperature is in the low 50’s and we can see snow covering the mountains not so far above us.  Good thing we all brought jackets.

The ranch and stables are on the edge of the Coronado National Forest.  A ranch hand gets our horses saddled, and helps us mount our steeds.  From there we set out on a two-hour adventure farther up the Catalina Mountains.  It feels like we are in the Old West until my sister, Jean, a novice rider makes us feel like we are really City Slickers.  Her horse, Copper, decides this is just a one-hour ride and turns back downhill prematurely, despite my sister’s coaxing.  Only a big tug from our guide gets her back on track.

Midway on our ride we reach a high point where we are rewarded with great views of the valley below.  We stop for photos.  We look like the cast of Bonanza!  On the way down, the horses know they are going home and they speed up.  My brother-in-law’s horse, Bubba, trots ahead accentuating his saddle sores.  Back at the ranch we are all ready to dismount and silently happy to know we are in the automobile era.

January 22, 2016

January 22, 2016

We drove with one of my visiting sisters and her husband to the Pima Air and Space Museum to sign up for one of their specialty tours.  We were hoping to join the noon excursion but it is apparently very popular so the only available spots are with the 3:30.  We have four hours to kill.  It is a beautiful sunny day so we hop in the car and head north back toward the Catalina Mountains.  At Sabino Canyon we walk the road up the canyon.  Seeing Sabino Creek full of water we make a detour and follow a trail down to the water.  A little farther along we come to an old dam that has water flowing over its face.  A big waterfall in the desert.  Who would have believed it? 

Back at the museum, we board the tour bus and get driven over to Davis-Monthan AFB.  Besides being home to a squadron of A-10 Warthogs, the base also holds the 309^th Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group, AMARG, affectionately known to locals as the “Boneyard”.  This is where the military stores some 4400 surplus or obsolete aircraft they aren’t yet willing to part with.  Tucson is an ideal storage location because of the dry climate and ready availability of open flat land.  (There is also a commercial storage location 40 miles northwest at Pinal Airpark.)

We are driven around this vast facility past rows and rows of large transports, fighter jets, trainer aircraft, and helicopters.  The biggest planes occupy a huge swath of territory but several dozen helicopters can be fit in the same area.  It feels like there are tens of thousands of aircraft.  The oldest planes (e.g. F4 Phantoms) reach back to the Vietnam era. 

Incoming planes first have dangerous items removed, like fuel, armaments and ejection seat actuators.  Vulnerable items are then covered with a white plastic for protection from the intense sun.  The newest planes are stored in case of WWIII breaking out.  Others are used for spare parts, but the oldest aircraft are used for target practice or are destined for disposal, either being sold or scrapped for their metal content.  750 personnel are employed here to maintain the operation.

The vastness of this facility is a testament to the strength and size of our military.  This mothball fleet would be the world’s second largest air force, even ahead of Russia.  Sadly, our military procurement process is so riddled by special interest, some airplanes go straight from production into mothball storage.

January 1, 2016

January 1, 2016

Happy New Year!  I am up early this morning.  A friend is picking me up so we can drive to Phoenix and attend my first Bowl Game.  I was hoping to wait till the Fighting Illini made it to the Rose Bowl, but it is looking like I might be quite old before that happens again.  So here I am.

The Fiesta Bowl is held in Glendale, AZ at the University of Phoenix Stadium.  It is a two-hour drive with no traffic.  When we get to Phoenix there is thick smog and a whiff of burning.  We don’t have a lot of trees in southern Arizona so it can’t be forest fires.  I later learn it was attributed to fireworks from last night lingering in the valley.  It is making me glad we picked Tucson for retirement.  Our air is much cleaner.

The University of Phoenix Stadium is a little misleading.  The college is mostly online with no intermural sports teams.  The corporation that owns the school bought the naming rights like any other sponsor.  It is actually the home field of the Arizona Cardinals NFL team.

Winter mornings in the desert are frigid.  It is supposed to warm up to the high 60’s today so after finding the parking lot, I pull on a sweatshirt.  Once inside the stadium, we find the enclosed area is still cold from last night and I am underdressed.  We walk the inside perimeter to stay warm, and check out the choices for an early lunch.  The promenade has a storyboard about Cardinal history and I get a few reminisces about the “Cardiac Cards” time in St Louis.  There was another display about the playing field.  It is one of a kind.  The surface is real grass and is grown by literally rolling the field out sideways into the sun.

Once the game got underway, Ohio State jumped to an early 14-0 lead against Notre Dame.  Thankfully I was rooting for OSU and I could jump and cheer often to help stay warm.  It turned out to be a high scoring game with OSU winning 44-28.  Since we paid so much for the tickets, we stayed for the post game activities and award ceremony to get our money’s worth.