March 24, 2016

March 24, 2016

Tucson has lots of attractions for the visitor.  We went with my sister and her family to the Titan Missile Museum.  This is a relic of the Cold War that we last visited in 2007.

Titan II was an enormous liquid fueled rocket used not only for the Gemini space launches by NASA but also for defense.  Three clusters of Titan II ICBM rockets with 9-megaton hydrogen bomb payloads were built in the early sixties to “dissuade” the USSR from starting WWIII.  Despite being accident-prone, manpower intensive, and very expensive this missile platform lingered in our arsenal for many years, eventually being replaced by Minuteman solid fuel rockets.  All 54 Titan launch sites were destroyed by SALT treaty except for this lone Tucson silo.  Most of the facility is far underground.  Only a massive sliding door and a few antennas grace the surface.  Climbing down the stairs we look inside the missile silo (by treaty always open) and tour the central control room. This visit seemed more interesting, maybe because this time we had a guide that actually worked here many years ago as a young teenage Air Force crewman.  He added a lot of color and realism no one else could have.

March 23, 2016

March 23, 2016

My sister Vicki and her family came into town to visit again for Spring Break.  Tucson is a wonderful escape from Chicago’s lingering winter weather.  We went with them to visit the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum.  We had a good time despite the Raptor Flight being cancelled.  The weather was unusually cool making the animals more active than normal.  Plus Spring means the cacti are starting to flower and the birds are building nests.  The facility is well staffed with dozens of volunteer docents and has lots of activities for kids.  Our youngest nephew was kept busy looking for the dozen Animal Tracking stations so he could collect every footprint stamp.  He reminds me a lot of what I was like at that age.

Aimee and I love the Desert Museum.  We would go all the time if it was a little closer to home.  Aimee loves the animals, especially the hummingbirds, and I like taking their photo.  We even made a follow-up visit on Sunday after my sister left.

Since it is my birthday, Aimee baked a cake and our niece decorated it.  I have had a telescope from a very young age, so my sister invited a local astronomer to stage a Star Party in our backyard.  Aimee and I have participated in a couple while camping at National Parks so I wasn’t expecting much.  This one was fantastic.  The guide was very knowledgeable and had a humorous patter to go with his entertaining lecture.  He set up a large 11-inch computer-controlled Schmidt-Cassegrain and had a well-planned itinerary. 

The nice thing about Star Parties is they are all different.  The sky is continually changing.  And I love these new automated telescopes and the digital cameras that can easily be attached.  They are a great leap forward especially for the photographer in me.  I may need to budget one of these for our future. 

Soon after setup, the moon made a visit quickly popping up over our mountains.  To my delight, our guide was able to take several photos with my sister's I-phone showing the hilltop trees and rocks silhouetted against the moon’s magnified surface.  We then got to see the planet Jupiter and the clearly visible red stripes on its stormy surface.  I liked the view of the Great Orion Nebula the best because those types of objects were the most difficult to see with the little shaky telescope of my youth.  What a wonderful birthday surprise!

March 16-20, 2016

March 16-20, 2016

Since Aimee and I spend a lot of our free time playing golf, we again volunteered to work the PGA golf tournament that comes into town every Spring.  For the second year it is a Champions Tour event, which is euphemism for Seniors.  That is ok; if we could hit the ball as well as these 50+ year-old guys still do, we would be ecstatic.

Aimee was again hole marshal and I was a standard bearer.  The first two days was a Pro-Am to raise money for a local charity.  On Friday the real play got started.  I was kicking myself for agreeing to work all five days but that turned out to be fortuitous.  It gave me a chance to walk with the leaders on day Two.  One of them, Scott Verplank, had another good round putting him at the top of the pack.  The cameraman following our group, apparently recognized my acting ability and pulled me aside.  On the 18^th green, he had me pose with my sign while Verplank sank his last putt.  I was front and center of the telecast for almost 15 seconds.  I am a Star!!