Tucson, Scene 4

This will be my last blog from Tucson -- at least for this year. I thought about calling it simply, "Hot." It was. That wasn't the case all week because we had some rather chilly days but yesterday and today it really felt like Arizona. We went to church at The Road. Yes, that's the name of the church. It's a Christian and Missionary Alliance Church -- Joyce wanted to touch her roots. The church was planted about 4 years ago and is slowly growing. After a quick lunch at Carl's Jr. we went to the Tucson rodeo. That's where it was hot -- probably about 85 where we were sitting. But it was great. Great weather, great rodeo, great time. Today was also hot -- or at least warm. Very nice.

Did you see the eclipse of the moon Wednesday night? Wasn't it fun? We saw most of it. Joyce P. has an 8 inch telescope so it was really neat looking at it. Only one problem. Clouds! Yes clouds in Arizona. I told them I could do this in Oregon. So when the eclipse was full, we couldn't see it. But we did get to see part of it. This picture is when it is almost full. The other is a picture of Saturn taken a few days before. Can you see the rings? Both of these were taken by just putting my camera lens on the telescope lens -- not very scientific but it worked. The Saturn picture is a little blurry.

On Friday, Jim and went to the Pima Air and Space Museum. I'm not all that excited about seeing a bunch of old planes but this place was good. They have a B-29 which flew in WWII. A guy who actually flew in that plane was there to tell us some war stories about it. Pretty neat! Do you know the SR-71 Blackbird which flies at over 2,000 miles an hour at 80,000 feet actually expands 6 inches because of the heat buildup? I didn't. It's one of those planes with a long fuselage in front of the wings so it looks like a goose flying. It was used as a spy plane.

Tomorrow we leave Jim's and Joyce's and head down Tombstone way. Maybe get into a shootout at the OK Corral. Here is a picture of where we have been for the past 24 days. To the left of this picture they have a beautiful view of the Catalina Mountains. So this is our world. It is marvelous. How's yours?

Tucson, Scene 3

It is Sunday evening at Mumau's Alpenlite Abode. All is quiet and cool with promises of a nice warm week. We had snow Friday but it was only a few minutes of great big flakes and didn't stick. The Catalina Mountians just to the east of us have snow on the tops. It did rain most of the day so Joyce and I went into town to see how Tucsonians handle the rain. Answer: the same as every where else. We stopped to eat lunch at a neat little sandwich shop next to the University of Arizona campus. It's called the "Which Wich." You place your order by marking what you want on a small paper bag. There are about 10 varieties such as turkey, traditional, grinder, and so on. Pick the bag you want -- then mark the particular kind of sandwich, kind of bread, cheese, and condiments. Take it to the counter, pay your money and in a few minutes your sandwich is in the bag ready for you. But I digress. We saw people braving the weather in rubber boots and flipflops, in heavey coats and tee shirts, with hats, umbrellas, and bare headed.

We were in that part of town to tour the Arizona Historical Museum and the Arizona State Museum. We only saw part of the latter because we spent so much time in the former. But we'll get it another time -- maybe next year. We're thinking of coming back but more about that another time.

The explanation for this picture is that we went to Tubac this week. It is an old historic town which they have turned into a tourist trap -- err, I mean an eclectic artist community selling lots of expensive stuff and a little affordable stuff -- paintings, jewlerey, pottery, basketry, and so on. It is the site of one of the first forts (presidios) in the area. We toured the remains of the original presidio and part of that area is an old school. So scholarly Joyce sat for a quick lesson in posing for the camera.

The other big thing we did this week was go to Biosphere 2. If you can remember back to the early 1990s, there was this big thing about building a self contained, sustainable colony. The result was a huge structure (actually a series of structures) made of glass and steel -- kind of like a giant hot house. They locked 4 men and 4 women inside for two years. They had lots of problems but they made it. A second group of 8 only made 6 months before outside circumstances (politics and money!) halted that effort. The place has been sold a few times but right now the University of Arizona owns it and are conducting plant-life experiements there. It is open to the public for tours so we went. It was really interesting because I remember the news media telling about these people -- they call them biospherians. Oh, we also had a two-for-one coupon. If you ever come to Tucson, be sure to buy the Tucson Passport -- only $15 and if you go to only a couple places you have your money back. I digress again. This obviously is Joyce with part of the biospere in the background. Why Joyce all the time? Because I'm taking the pictures and the ones she takes have too many pixals to work well in this blog.

Today I went to Casas Church with Jim. Joyce P is having some high blood pressure problems so Joyce M stayed home with her. It is a good church even if it is Baptist! They have a great mission mind-set. So we get set for the week ahead. God will be present. Will he not?

Tucson, Scene 2

Yes, indeed! The snow has passed, the rain is gone, the sun is out, and it is warm. Warm! Like short sleeve shirt warm. But that won't last. After all it is still winter at 2700 feet elevation. We had a great week getting acquainted with Tucson. Two biggy things were on our agenda plus a lot of little things.


One of the biggys was goint up to Kit Peak. This is a mountain top with 26 telescopes on it ranging in size from quite small to 4 meters across. My cousin Jim's wife is a docent there so we got a private tour on Tuesday. Her name is Joyce so I'll refer to her as Joyce P. to minimize the confusion between she and Joyce M. We didn't get to actually look through any of the telescopes because that is a special thing that requires lots of advance planning and money-- and darkness. But we were able to see inside some of them. Many of the telescopes are owned by universities around the country and some by private companies. There was snow on the ground as you can see by this picture. The elevation is almost 7,000 feet. Here you can see 3 of the 26 telescopes. The center one is for looking at the sun and the sloping side is for the light beam to travel way down into the ground, then back up about half way, then straight down to where it is viewed in the control room. The "donut" that Joyce and I are standing in front of in this next picture is a dummy lens made of concrete. It is about a foot thick and is 4 meters across. While they were setting up the telescope, adjusting everything, and making sure it would all work, this was used instead of the real glass lens. If something went wrong this was cheaper to replace! After it's career as a "dummy lens" it was set up for people to see how big the real lens is. It was Joyce P's idea to have an artist paint the scenes on it so... I don't know, so it would look nicer, I guess.

Saturday we took my uncle Ken to the Arizona Desert Museum. We had a lot of fun walking the paths looking at desert flora and fauna. We ate lunch there, watched the birds, prairie dogs, wolves, and big horn sheep. And I should add, etc., etc. My uncle Ken is my mom's little brother. Here he is with Joyce. He was a Free Methodist minister -- for many years in "interracial" evangelism in Louisiana, Texas, and Virginia. Interracial evangelism is what they called ministry to the black population back in the 40s and 50s. Then he served as a pastor in South Dakota and Oregon. After his wife died he moved to Tucson to be near his son and grandkids. We had lunch with him at the retirement home he is living in. You actually order off a menu like in a restaurant. Some items are the same each day, some are new. We had a choice of about eight entree items plus a soup, salad bar, dessert, and drink. Really, really nice living conditions. The Lord is blessing him for his years of faithful ministry. He is 92 years young and followed Joyce and I around like a kid. If only I can do this well.


Today we took Ken and went to the Tucson Free Methodist Church. Only it isn't in Tucson anymore. They relocated to Vail -- out in the desert. In fact their name is Footprints in the Desert. Too far to travel on a regular basis. After church we stopped at Colossal Cave for lunch (Mexican food on the patio) and a look at the museum and gift shop. Joyce and Ken didn't want to tour the cave but they let me go while they waited. It was "okay" -- not spectacular but some interesting things to see. We managed to make a full day of it.


So my world continues to be Tucson and it's neighbors. What size is your world? Take care and take notes.

Tucson, Scene 1

We now sit at my cousin's house on the northwest side of Tucson. Actually he doesn't live IN Tucson but that's his address. This is Jim and Joyce Park I speak of. He is my uncle Ken's son. Not only are we sitting here at his house, we are sitting here in the snow. Yes, snow! Well, not very much of it but enough to definately call it snow. Rather slushy and mostly gone by now. The hills across the little valley are covered. The storm will be gone by tomorrow and the weather guy says it will be 71 degrees by next weekend. Hope so.

We arrived in Desert Hot Springs a couple weeks ago in a strong wind and left a week ago in a strong wind. It sort of blew us in and blew us out. We traveled down the east side of the Salton Sea to an RV place called the Fountain of Youth. That would have been the place to hang out all winter and get youthful again but we looked around and the people didn't look very youthful so figured it didn't work very well. They had a few nice hot tubs and pools and we did our best to make use of them. They have an interesting system -- no reservations. You either get there early in the snowbird year or you wait in the overflow camping until a vacancy comes up. Every afternoon at 2:00 they have vacancy call in front of the office. We knew we weren't going to stay that long so we didn't bother but were told it could take 4 or 5 days to get a spot with hookups. We worked our way down to Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument in the very south of Arizona -- south of Ajo. It was fantastic. They have a big campground with level concrete pads right in the middle of all the cactus. There were no hookup but we only paid $6. One time we paid $45 for a place that wasn't even close to being that nice (except it had hookups).

We drove a 21 mile loop road that show-cased the most beautiful scenery with jillions of different cactus. Organ pipe cactus is 4 to 8 feet tall and grows in a bunch from the base. It is mainly in Mexico and this is the only place where it grows in the US. If we had known it would be so much fun we would have planned to stay longer. But had plans to be at Jim and Joyce's by early Saturday afternoon. One of their granddaughters was celebrating her birthday at a steak house called Pinnacle Peak. It is in a small western-themed "town" (off one of the main streets in Tucson) with street entertainment going on in the evening. It was fun and the food was good. And the sherrif caught the bad guys.

Jim and Joyce attend Casas Adobes Baptist Church so we went with them Sunday. It is large but they are attracted to it because it has a very active missions program. Jim and Joyce were Wycliff Bible Translaters in Surinam South America and are still working for Wycliff in the US. One of the ministries they have is serving lunch after church so we stayed for the meal. For $7.50 for the two of us, Joyce and I had a great meal of more than we really needed. I'm sure it is a lot of work to pull this off every Sunday but it is also the food venue for the school Casas sponsors.

So we are here in Tucson for awhile, come rain or snow or sleet or gloom of night. Unless there is too much snow!!! Our house has wheels you know! This where our world is expanding to. How about yours? Maybe it is the pastor in me but I notice churches everywhere we go. While we were driving through all those cactus in Organ Pipe I noticed there is even a church in the desert. Check out the next blog.

The Church in the Desert

It's amazing what one can find in the desert! Even a church. Have a look.