Tucson, Fight and/or Flight?

Is it Fight or Flight…. or both? Having a sleep in, is impossible in Tucson. Home to the Davis-Monthan
Air Force Base, they start flying their F16 fighter jets and A10’s very early, every day it seems, there’s no avoiding the sound. It has 11k airmen and as a base employs around 27k people contributing $2.6bn to the local economy. They also have quite a few planes and helicopters! Anyhow, Tucson has quite a lot to see and do, not only the Saguaro National Park (E&W) but planes, trains and automobiles too (if you’re into that type of thing!) Arriving at our ‘camping’ we were quite taken aback. We felt very inferior, seeing the big rigs parked up under massive canopies and there was no way we’d be competing with the Christmas decorations! Here’s our best bits!

We’ve passed through Tucson before. On that occasion it was possible to tour The Aircraft Boneyard but not anymore. As an active air base, they’re too concerned about marauding tourists thieving bits off the thousands of junked planes it seems. From Google Earth, the scale of it is immense, and its questionable why all that junk, never to fly again, is just sitting there, wrapped up in white to stop critters but rusting away in the desert. We could see a lot from the perimeter road but here’s some from the last visit too, it’s shockingly vast!

We did however go to The PIMA Air & Space Museum which is an indoor/outdoor museum showcasing planes and helicopters of all shapes and sizes form all over the globe. I could easily bore you senseless so I won’t, save to say that even I found it interesting. The tall one was a pretty good guide, being more into that type of thing through family, than I am! The B52’s were ginormous (damn it I’ve got that Love Shack earworm again!) the fighter jets were ‘cute’ (not my words but that of an American tourist!) and the SR71 Blackbird spy plane was pretty stealthy! Joking aside, I actually enjoyed the artistry in the designs of them, different shapes and forms and markings! The helicopters looked like a row of insects.

A whole facility was dedicated to The Flying Fortress, no not something created by Disney to replace the carpet, but an homage to the B17 and it’s role in WW2 bombing raids over Germany. There was a lot of information and old video footage bringing it to life. The tall one could never have been a rear gunner, squished into the tiny space, immobile for 7 hours. Seriously, the conditions in all of the aircraft we saw at the whole museum were startlingly basic and it is difficult to imagine what all the crews endured, from any country’s side.

So, talking of fighting rather than flighting, we headed off for a new experience, Ice Hockey. The tall one had never been to a game so Tucson Roadrunners v San Jose Barracudas was his initiation. Neither of us have a clue as to the rules other than a puck in the net is a goal so we were a tad lost, but it was an ill tempered game, several fights broke out on the ice to which the crowd cheered and applauded. How can fisticuffs in sport be celebrated in such a way and what happened to role models? Even the kids were at it! An experience we probably won’t repeat, even American Football is tame in comparison and they’d get banned for fighting! Getting late night food in the downtown with the students was far more sedate however, the haves:have not divide was startlingly evident. We lost count of the number of ‘student car of choice, the Wrangler Jeep’, in the car park and noted all retail advertising for young women was aimed at those who were slim, tanned and blonde… diversity is lost at the elite schools it seems!

Another museum that was thought provoking to say the least was The Titan Missile Museum. Back in the Cold War era and the nuclear arms race, the US built 54 missile silos at 3 air force bases in readiness for any Russian launch. The Titan, south of Tucson had 18 of them, built in 1960 with the first intercontinental missile there in 1962. An interesting tour of what is now a time capsule from those days, we were able to go down, along corridors underground, into the chamber, understand the control room and how they were built. What is thought provoking though is then, it was more or less 1:1 USA:Russia… it isn’t these days. All the sites were deactivated in 1982 but who knows whats around the globe now?

West of Tucson is a superb and much more genteel Sonora Desert Museum, in Tucson Mountain Park. Spending all afternoon there and literally leaving at closing, its a fantastic showcase and learning centre about the geology, colourful minerals, flora and fauna of the Sonora desert and also a rescue location for animals. (We don’t do Zoo’s) They’ve a Bobcat, Coyote, Mexican Grey Wolf, Ocelot and Puma plus Javelinas, all cared for in great surroundings and who wouldn’t have survived otherwise. Lot’s of desert birds too, from the bright red Northern Cardinal to numerous humming birds, one in a nest. We had a great time and learned a lot about the various cacti and differences of the Sonora to the other three deserts in the US. If I can remember it next week, that’s another thing!

Saguaro National Park actually sits both sides of Tucson (E&W) Much of the park is accessible for young fit things who want to hike out for days but there’s plenty to see. More Cholla cacti of various types, more Saguaro and the nasty Fish Hook barrel cacti (the pic shows why!) It has nice yellow fruit though!

The San Xavier del Bac Mission is an iconic Spanish Catholic Church. Photographed and made famous by Ansel Adams it sits, strikingly white in the landscape. Rightly so it’s a National Historic Landmark, and was built in 1783. It dates from when South Arizona was known as New Spain. When Mexico gained independence in 1821 it was Mexican and when, after the US Mexico War in 1854, and the Gadsden Purchase, (the US bought a chunk of Mexico), it was on US soil. It feels kind of misplaced now though and stands out from the manufactured home and freeways environment surrounding it.

Let it snow…. yes it snows in Arizona. Tucson sits at 2500ft but sits in a bowl of mountains, the most notable being Mt Lemmon. Being the desert, once the sun goes down the temperatures plummet and all it takes is a bit of rain and hey presto, lets get the ski’s out. Maybe not, but we thought we could at least join in on the fighting act! Mt Lemmon is within the stunning Catalina Mountain Range, NW of Tucson. Driving up through the Sabino Canyon Recreation Area and standing at a glorious viewpoint we were alarmed by the sound of gun shots (no one else was!) Yeah we forgot that shooting is the recreational drug of choice for many and in certain areas there must be some kind of ranges, who knows? We weren’t going to be looking for where the noise came from. Seven Falls, Thimble Rock and Babad Do’ag overlooks all provided different views and the higher up, views over the sprawl of Tucson in the vast flat valley.

At 4500ft we started to lose the Saguaro and saw more Agave and then we moved into trees at the higher elevations. Incredible Gneiss rock forms prevailed, many looked like boulders precariously stacked upon each other waiting for a slight quake. Can you see a Storm Trooper in one of the pics or was it just us with a touch of the altitude?! At the top, snow! It was over 8k ft. The ski lift was running although skiing would have been optimistic, and the temp was -1. Obviously I won the snowball fight, we’re both competitive but the tall one is kinder in how he throws!

So our fight and flight 6 days was over, we were glad we’d taken the time out in Tucson but in search of a bit more tranquility back in our lives, we headed back to the park. Jigsaw was complaining about the lack of interest at the KOA. The Road Runners were too quick for her and she’s in charge so we had no choice!