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.