Tucson!

[bigbill]

Weisan,
You should get the 15-year-old interested in the Naval Academy if she wants to fly. It won't cost you a dime; we will all pay for it. The academies sometimes struggle to get enough female applicants. No college debt, advanced flight training if she qualifies, and four years of not worrying about what to wear each day. My son graduated in 2022 and is more than a year into flight school.

[weisan]

Originally Posted by bigbill

Weisan,
You should get the 15-year-old interested in the Naval Academy if she wants to fly. It won't cost you a dime; we will all pay for it. The academies sometimes struggle to get enough female applicants. No college debt, advanced flight training if she qualifies, and four years of not worrying about what to wear each day. My son graduated in 2022 and is more than a year into flight school.

bill pal, I agree with you COMPLETELY...

This is her older sister.

[texbike]

Wei, I'm sorry that we missed each other while out there. We just made it back in last night. Interestingly, it looks like we hit a number of the same places - El Presidio/downtown/Barrio Viejo, Mt. Lemmon, and the Saguaro NP East Loop.

I'll post some pics as soon as I figure out how to do it from my iphone.

Thanks to everyone that provided suggestions! Somehow we managed to miss a good portion of them - there was just so much to do. We did hikes each day (Catalina State Park, Pima Canyon, Sabino Canyon, Ventana Canyon, and Bear Wallow), hung out by the pool a bit, explored the areas downtown, and around UofA. Managed to get early morning rides in - Oro Valley (meh - too much traffic), up to the top of the Sabino Canyon road and back down (fun!), and then the Saguaro NP East Loop (wow!). We stayed at the Westward Look that sits between the Catalina Foothills and Oro Valley. From a cycling perspective, it probably wasn't the best spot to be as it required riding on Ina Road if I was going to ride out the door and not drive to a place to start from.

We LOVED Tucson. The outdoors access is fantastic, the food was great (Tumerico especially!), everyone that we spoke with was incredibly friendly, and the downtown cultural options were fun. What a great town! One interesting thing that both my wife and I noticed was the lack of highway systems throughout town like we have in Austin and other Texas cities. It seemed like other than I-10, everything was just a surface street. It was cool to see a mountain in the distance no matter which street you looked down.

We'll definitely be going back. Again, thanks for all of the suggestions - our Paceline community is the best!!!

Texbike

[weisan]

Tex pal, no worries, I kinda go with the flow. We got in around 7pm yesterday too, glad we didn't encounter any severe weather that was forecasted.

[texbike]

Originally Posted by weisan

Tex pal, no worries, I kinda go with the flow. We got in around 7pm yesterday too, glad we didn't encounter any severe weather that was forecasted.

We were about 4 hours behind you guys. Dust storms and fog on the way back for us! Never been hit by a big tumble weed before. That was fun.

Texbike

[sjbraun]

Tucson is beautiful this time of year. I'm glad you all had a great time. If you come again, I'd be happy to lead you on a mural tour. Our mural scene is outstanding.

Steve, a Tucsonan since 1989

[weisan]

Originally Posted by sjbraun

Tucson is beautiful this time of year. I'm glad you all had a great time. If you come again, I'd be happy to lead you on a mural tour. Our mural scene is outstanding.

Steve, a Tucson since 1989

Steve pal, thanks for the kind offer, we will definitely take you up on it the next time we come again. In fact, I looked at some of the old threads about Tucson on paceline before we got here and took into account a few of your suggestions, so thank you!

It's funny you mentioned the mural scene. On the first day when we arrived at Tucson, my 15-yr-old Lizzy pointed to some kind of pattern on a bridge in the highway and she said, "Tucson is more artistic and interesting than Austin..." and her older brother chimed in and said, "Yeah, and all we got in Texas is everything with a star."

We parked our car somewhere near El Charro Café and walked over to the Presidio area, on our way there we saw a couple of interesting murals.


We went inside the main library to use the restroom and happened upon the artwork done by the high school students in Tucson on display on the walls and my kids spent a fair bit of time walking around and admiring the work of their peers.



My girls were attracted to some beautiful pieces in the gift shop at the desert museum.


Tucson has certainly included a component of A-R-T into our trip.

[sjbraun]

What did your kids think of the Titan Missile Museum? I took our daughter there when she was in college. She saw the "educational" video produced at the time that recommended hiding under a blanket if a nuclear blast was imminent. She was shocked that that was the advice we were given. It's a very sobering place.

[weisan]

Originally Posted by sjbraun

What did your kids think of the Titan Missile Museum?
.....
It's a very sobering place.

We engaged in some sobering talk during and after the visit.

1) they are impressed that so many safeguards were put in place to prevent any accidental misfire or rogue launch

2) food, water, power generation and internal climate control available to keep the crew alive in times of a near miss - but it begs the question: what's the point of continue living if you are the only ones surviving and all the loved ones and everything you cherished are gone?

3) keeping the hatch half opened so the russian satelite can see the inside of the missile silo and verify that this is a decommissioned launch site and the missile is inoperable for the sake of transparency.

[sjbraun]

The tour we took several years ago was led by a missleairre (sic,) someone who had been stationed in the silo during the Cold War. Her instructions, after launch, were to maintain radio silence for 30 days, then to exit the silo to see what if anything remained. Such an insane time.
I just finished reading the book on which the Oppenheimer film was based. It's astounding/frightening how quickly nuclear arsenal grew in just a few years, over 70,000 devices by the mid-eighties. I guess we should be grateful that there are now thought to be just 12,000 in existence now. But given it would only take a handful to spark an apocalypse, I'm not particularly comforted by the decrease in numbers.

[Bob Ross]

Originally Posted by texbike

We stayed at the Westward Look that sits between the Catalina Foothills and Oro Valley. From a cycling perspective, it probably wasn't the best spot to be as it required riding on Ina Road if I was going to ride out the door and not drive to a place to start from.

Tip for next time -- which, to be fair, only took me a half dozen+ years to figure out: The Loop (extensive local multi-use path) parallels Ina Road for about as far east or west as you would ever need to go to get to any of the excellent cycling around Tucson.

I actually love riding on Ina Road if I'm heading west; it's got a very wide shoulder, and a very slight downhill bias. Wheeee! But I still usually take the Loop as my main east/west cycling artery.

[weisan]

Originally Posted by sjbraun

The tour we took several years ago was led by a missleairre (sic,) someone who had been stationed in the silo during the Cold War. Her instructions, after launch, were to maintain radio silence for 30 days, then to exit the silo to see what if anything remained. Such an insane time.
I just finished reading the book on which the Oppenheimer film was based. It's astounding/frightening how quickly nuclear arsenal grew in just a few years, over 70,000 devices by the mid-eighties. I guess we should be grateful that there are now thought to be just 12,000 in existence now. But given it would only take a handful to spark an apocalypse, I'm not particularly comforted by the decrease in numbers.

Yup...this picture posted at the lobby did not bring any comfort, even though it's probably a bit outdated.