Category: Arizona

Titan II Missile Museum, Tucson, AZ – Sunday November 2, 2014

Visited the last Titan II Missile installation which is 20 miles south of Tucson. This is the last installation of 54 Titan II ICBM missiles of the Cold War.  These missiles could travel 6000 miles and deliver a 9 megaton war head with a launch time of 58 seconds.  The war head would directly have an effect on a 17 mile radius from the landing point.
We got a one hour tour down into the site including the control room and missile launch silo.
This is one of the seven blast doors each weighing 6000 pounds which can be closed by  a single hand lightly pulling on the door handle.
This is the main control panel where the watch officer sat.
Here is one of the main passages within the complex.
Here is the missile from an access point that was cut into the silo so we could see what the missile looked like inside it’s silo.
Picture from the silo.
Here we were looking done into the silo.
The launch missile site.

This is a picture of Titan II missile launched from an above ground launch site.

It was a very interest tour and we are glad we went.

 

PIMA Air & Space Musuem, Tucson, AZ – Friday October 31, 2014

We spent the whole day at this airplane museum Pima Air & Space Museum.  We walked in at 10:30 and left when they closed at 5:00.
The museum is just east of Tucson and is a history of aviation.
Starting with the Wright Brothers and continues into space.

It is about three quarters military aircraft.

Here are the military planes I was most involved with.

F-4 was the attack plane which flew out of Danang when I was there.
They have several iconic B-52’s and they are massive planes.
This is one of the planes we flew on out of Danang, C-121.
I know a lot of these pictures of the same plane, however this may be the last time I get to see one of these.
We also flew on a P-3 nose number 31 and 32.
Ok, last picture of a P-3, I actually did pretty good and only took 200 pictures during the day.    We took 3 one hour tours: 1 & 2 were walking tours through hangers and the third was a tram tour outside where many planes were parked.
One of the buildings was build by the 390th Bombardment Groupwho flew B-17’s.
This painting on the wall shows what it was like inside the plane.
The gunner’s position under the plane.
The actual position.
This is 1943 Ford jeep, I had a 1942 one of these during high school.  Note the gas tank under the driver’s seat.

I took this picture of the flight deck of a glider to show how minimal they were, thought it is interesting.

It was an interesting day.  When we get home and have more bandwidth I plan to send some time on these two websites.

 

Mission San Xavier, Tucson, AZ – Thursday October 30, 2014

We visited the oldest Spanish style building in Arizona the CatholicMission San Xavier, started 1783 and opened as church in 1797.
Mission San Xavier del Bac

There was a bunch of scaffolding in the church as they are always working on restoring the paintings and statues.  When we got home I found I not taken any overall pictures of the inside of the church ( ripped these from the church website ).

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These are some of the original beams that were then covered with saguaro cactus internal wood ribs and then adobe.

Catalina State Park – Tucson, AZ – Monday October 27, 2014

We moved into Arizona where weather is going to stay within the mid 80’s for the next week.

Campsite picture site #45.

We were here in September 2004 when Jean started the conversation about if we were going to continue to travel in an RV we should think about what we were going to do long term.  We decided to start looking at a larger unit.  In November 2004 we found what we thought was close to the perfect Class A.  We were not too excited about the interior green color however over a short period of time we began to love it.  The green is easy to keep clean and we have been able to match it for extra pillows and throws.

At this point we love the way our RV is configured and don’t want to look for a newer unit.  The last unit we sold with 51,000 miles and to date we have 72,000 miles and many more to go.

 

Lees Ferry National Monument – Saturday September 27, 2014

We have a new campsite.
Yes, I’m one of those people who will ask people who are leaving a GREAT site if I can have it when they leave.  This is one of the two end sites over looking the river.
We have had thunder storms off and on all day.  I did get out to take these two pictures.
Here is one of the river.
This guy and a girl used the site next to us to pack their boat yesterday.  They are going to be on the river for 21 days.  Between now and the end of October they are going to see a lot of weather changes.  We have been in rain storm for the last hour and I see no end in sight and it is still 83 degrees.

Lees Ferry National Monument – Friday September 26, 2014

We left Jacob Lake early because it was a Friday and I wanted to get to the campground early in the day.  It turned out to be the right thing to do.  We have been here twice before and this campground is usually empty, us and three or four other groups.  This year the place is 3/4 full.  Some people are here for a condor release on Saturday however most of the people just seem to be passing through.
We usually have one of the two campsites that directly over look the Colorado River, no such luck this year.

Here is the campsite with the traveling flamingos, in the tree.

We took the car and drove back out to Hwy 89 to take pictures of the Vermilion Cliffs and some of the rock that have fallen down off the cliffs.

I think these a over 2000 feet high.
This is a rock that rolled down from the cliffs a long time ago and the ground around it has eroded away.  The pickup belongs to a lady who is using the rock for shade to sell her jewelry.
This is a house which was built under one of these large rocks, great place to stay cool.