Spring Break

This year I decided to take some time off while Adri was one spring break and take the kids out of town. There are some things I have been wanting to check out in Tucson for a while now but we haven't got around to it. I had big plans this year and we got through most of my list, only leaving out two of the places I wanted to visit while we were down there.

We have had the trailer in the shop for warranty repairs since our big trip last summer. No joke it's been there the entire time. I got it back a couple days before our trip (it's still not complete and had to go back after our trip) and I found more problems. They put these cheap Chinese "CastleRock" brand tires on the trailer and after only a year all the valves were cracking. The trailer is technically out of warrant so I called Rockwood and complained. Told them this is a safety issue and they need to stop being cheap and put some good tires on these trailers. A blowout could cost thousands in repairs, or kill a family, and no one spending over 30K on a trailer is going to complain about an extra $300 for high quality tires. They wanted me to just get the valves repaired and I told them no, I'll just get new tires myself. Then I went on their forums and complained. A couple hours later I got an e-mail saying they'll reimburse me $300 for new tires. So we started our trip with a stop at Discount tires where I spent almost $800 on the only trailer tire still made in America, the Goodyear Endurance.

I feel like owning this trailer is a lot like playing that game The Oregon Trail. You're trying to get to Oregon but every couple minutes a wheel breaks, an axle breaks, an oxen dies, you have to stop and hunt because someone is hungry, or you get typhus. Well that was our trip. Fifteen minutes after leaving Discount Tire we are on I-17 and hear a swoosh. No rubber flying, no loss of control, lots of traffic so I kept going. About an hour later I pull off the freeway and find my dust pan under the trailer had dropped and was dragging. I pushed it back up and drove to a gas station for duct tape so I could do a quick repair. Of course they didn't have the good duct tape so I had to do a better repair at camp. I called Rockwood about that and a couple other issues when I got back and I think they'll be covering this as well.

After driving a couple hours we got to our site, Tuscon Lazy Days KOA. It's an interesting area. The campground is nice and has covered parking but once we got out of there it looks like it's nothing but meth heads all around that part of town. Not something I we see in the north valley. Our solar covered parking was actually cheaper than no covered which was a win for me because I'll fight for shade in this state. 

After setting up camp we took our first trip over to the San Xavier Mission. We spent probably just over an hour exploring that place before heading to dinner. I thought the mission was pretty cool. It's one of the oldest buildings in this state, over 200 years old and the site is over 300 years old. We don't get a lot of earthquakes in this state but in the 1880's there was a 7.2 nearby that destroyed a lot of the mission. I believe they said the area isn't likely to have another earthquake like that for tens of thousands of years.

Thursday was our trip to Biosphere 2. This was the main thing I wanted to see while I was down there. I have been wanting to go here for years. Natalie didn't know what it was and thought it sounded lame so we hadn't gone. I remember when I was in 6th grade I was getting these kids newspapers in school and they featured Biosphere. Plus, I'm a plant guy.... Biosphere is actually in Oracle, not far from Tucson but the drive sucks. There are a lot of stop lights and we hit every single one so it took about an hour to get there. The tour was about 75 minutes long and for the most part was pretty interesting. 

They are no longer using the Biosphere to try and colonize space but instead to study our own plant. They have found that when they pump up the co2 the trees go through rapid growth and absorb a lot of the co2. I thought that was interesting. But then they had to politicize it, or at least I took it that way. I believe the girl said they got the co2 up to 6,000 ppm, which I believe she was mistaken and it was actually 600 ppm because she said in the next 25-30 years that is the amount of carbon we'll have in our atmosphere. Of course then she brought up that it killed their coral reef and I took it like she was saying that is the fate of our planet. It's definitely an interesting observation but just because something happens one way in Biosphere doesn't mean it will happen to our planet. Biosphere only has one ocean that is one temperature, doesn't have our atmosphere, doesn't have all our different species, it's not a replica of our planet. The algae that thrived in those conditions and killed their reef might be killed off by something else in Biosphere 1, our planet. A cool experiment but it's annoying and not real science when they try to make too many assumptions off of it.

Everyone at the Biosphere said their favorite part was the lungs. For me, no. Yeah it was interesting, but it's just a big hollow room where they equalize the pressure. Going in and out of the lung we were sucked in and pushed out due to the pressure. That was cool but I felt the rest of it was hype. I thought the best part was without a doubt all the plants growing in the building. 

After Biosphere we went back to the trailer for lunch then tried to cram Old Tucson into an afternoon. Natalie read that most people only spend 2-3 hours there and we learned that afternoon that was not accurate. The kids enjoyed it but we didn't have nearly enough time there.

Friday we went down to the Kartchner Caverns. I've heard they are one of the best caves in the country. For the most point they didn't disappoint. They had the biggest cave chamber I have been in, lots of cool formations, and unlike other caves it wasn't cold. It's 72 degrees year round. The only thing I didn't like is they don't allow cameras, or phones, because if you drop them it could kill anything living (assuming you drop it over a ledges). That didn't stop Natalie from sneaking a few pictures when no one was looking. I feel like if they are going to ban phones and cameras they should at least setup a professional camera in the Rotunda room. Of course if they just required straps on all electrical devices it wouldn't be a problem either. We are adults, we can handle a phone.

We got an early cave tour and were done around 11:15 so I wanted to try and cram two stops in one day. Our next stop was to see the Titan Missile Museum, the only Titan site left in the country. I think they said the others were spread out in Indiana and Alabama but they are now destroyed.   I called ahead to see if we would make it in time since they don't take reservations and she said they were filling up fast and already booking for 1:30 and she couldn't guarantee if we would make it in time. So we rushed over there, an hour drive, just to find out that we rushed for nothing. We got a tour for 2:15 or something and they weren't even fully booked for the day until we left just around 3:30. I thought the missile tour overall was pretty awesome but I was disappointed that they only took us to a spot halfway down the missile. We didn't get to go all the way down where the engines are. The missiles are 104 feet tall so it's a 10 or 11 level silo they had it in. We did get quite a bit of information from the launch room about how everything worked. 

We had crammed both stops in that day so the following day we could spend an entire day at Old Tucson. The kids loved it there so what better way to spend the day? Adri had been wanting to zipline since our first trip there. It was $20 bucks for a 15 second ride, a ripoff in my opinion, but I said what the hell, it's vacation and my kid wants to be adventurous. 

Sunday we extended our reservation a couple hours. We didn't know until we got there and were getting buzzed by jets, but that weekend was the airshow at Davis-Monthan and the star of the show was the F-22 Raptor. We got mostly packed up and lit up the bbq right before the show started but despite being only a mile or two from the action we couldn't see a lot of it. So we drove around for about an hour and a half looking for a good spot to view all the action. We even drove onto the base, which was a madhouse, and we ended up leaving before even parking. We got back and hooked up the trailer and were ready to go. I was actually walking to the truck when I got buzzed by a F-22. This has to be the most impressive jet I have seen fly. It was doing loops then when it came out of it it looked like it was just falling to the ground. Then out of nowhere they would hit the engine and take off. At some points it was quiet but when the engines were turned our direction they are really loud. At one point there were two other jets flying next to it, I think one of them being an A-10 Warthog. This show switches between Davis-Monthan and Luke every year so we'll definitely be going next year to Luke to see the Raptors.

Remember when I mentioned the game The Oregon Trail. Well here comes the typhus. When hooking up the trailer I was getting a random pain in the wrist. Didn't think much of it. Then driving home I started feeling a little sunburned and cold, but I wasn't sunburned. When we got home Natalie asked me to go to Walmart for some TheraFlu because she wasn't feeling good. Well an hour later I got the full blown man flu. It was horrible timing because I can't call in sick after vacation without it making people suspicious. So I logged in for work for a few hours Monday then had to call out sick. I thought I'd be back Tuesday but Monday night I had 102 fever for 6 hours and even when it broke I was sweating all night. A fine way to end vacation. At least it was when I got back and not when I was trying to run around with the kids.

Our campsite. They had citrus between all campsites and they were all in bloom. They allow us to pick fruit so I got quite a bit of grapefruit and lemons.

San Xavier Mission.

The left side is restored but not the right. I think they said it was over a million dollars for the left side and they ran out of money.

Inside the chapel.

People were pinning pictures of sick people, including babies, to this effigy. I found it a little disturbing.

The courtyard. It was closed off.

I thought these cactus were really cool.

We went up the hill behind the mission and walked the loop. Coming back to the mission we saw a sun halo in the sky.

Tucson is a food paradise for me. Mexican restaurants across the street from Mexican restaurants. A coworker told me about this Mexican restaurant. Bill Clinton ate there once so right next to our table is the presidential table with his pictures all over the wall. I have one kid here who thinks he is a stripper and the other is sleeping. @Mi Nidito

At Biosphere 2. The big pyramid building is where all the plants are. The white dome behind the tree is one of the lungs.

Allegedly this was the most airtight building in the world at one point.

This is where they grow all their food. They were really smart and brought in these lemur like creatures called prosimian galagos (bush babies) that would steal their fruit and make some horrific sounding noises in the night. If I was part of the Biosphere experiment I would have put an end to that and had some bush baby dinner.

Natalie is really happy because that is a coffee plant behind her. It produced enough beans for each person living there to have one cup of coffee every 2 weeks. Natalie was not excited about that fact.

We didn't get to go on the lower boardwalk. Lots of big vines and bamboo in here. The plants release isoprene and we could smell it.

The ocean. Not sure why they need a boat.

This is one of the best parts of the tour. They used hydroponics to grow plants here. No soil, just water and lava rocks.

This is part of the desert. They had two parts of the desert, the wet desert here and the real desert below it.

This is the south lung. The ceiling in here lifts up on hot days.

Getting ready for Old Tucson.

The shows were really good at Old Tucson. Here's a guy getting shot off the roof. If you think this building looks familiar that is because it has been used on several western movies. My favorite being the wedding in the opening scene of Tombstone.

Normally I hate haunted houses. They are lame. This one was really cool though and the only kid not scared was Dean. They had zombies falling from the ceiling, a skeleton riding a rail car right towards us, hanging body bags, and the best part being the vortex at the end. While walking through it it felt like the bridge was moving but it wasn't.

Panning for gold, which is actually pyrite.

Ghost stories at the campfire.

At the Kartchner Caverns.

The Rotunda Room. This column is named Kubla Khan and is 58 feet tall. This room is massive.

From outside. The cave is in the hills behind the kids.

At the Titan Missile Museum. This is the 9 kiloton warhead from a Titan Missile.

This door is 6 tons but can be moved with the touch of a finger. Notice the springs hanging from the ceiling. The whole silo is built with huge springs.

In the control room. Another spring on the tour guide's right side. This room had them in every corner.

The missile from the 5th or 6th level.

This is the jeep the military used to go between the different sites. They Titan was located around three different cities but had multiple sites in each one. I think there were three in the Tucson area, spread out far enough so a nuclear attack could only destroy one.

There were no security guards walking around the silo. Instead they had these radar towers. If something was detected between them then security would come out to check it out. Animals would often set off the alarm.

The engine from a Titan missile.

The Titan Missile from above. To the right side you can see one of the doors is open. That is where we were when we took the from inside.

Back at Old Tucson. The set from Tombstone, The Three Amigos, I think the Wild Wild West, and dozens of other movies. The hill in the background called Golden Gate and is in over 400 western movies.

This train was in Tombstone, The Wild Wild West, I think Back To The Future II, and other movies. They had an arson fire in the 90s that burned down a lot of the park and destroyed the train. They fixed it up cosmetically but it no longer runs.

This is from The Three Amigos.

Back at the haunted house. Hanging body bags.

This guy was hanging onto the ceiling and dropped when we walked by.

The spinning vortex. Walking through it is like walking drunk. Walking really really drunk.

Adri on the zipline.

There were targets she had to shoot while ziplining.

The back of the mission set. Almost ruins the movie when you see the whole thing.

Driving the horseless carriage.

Back at the KOA. They had really chessy mini golf. The only problem is all the holes are near the road. Zach kept putting the ball right next to the hole and tapping it in. Then he would get really excited, as you can see, about a 5 inch put.

Dean got the first hole in one. With a little bit of help.

Dean kept wanting to take out the flag, put the ball in the hole, then hide it with the flag. The only problem is he couldn't get the flag back in with the ball there. He does the same thing at home. Trying to hide stuff from us.

Zach and Natalie watching the F-22 Raptors. Adri went back in the truck because it was too loud.