The road to Old Tucson, the desert museum, and the west part of Saguaro National Park is an example of what happens when the road doesn't follow the contours of the land, and the land isn't flattened and raised to make the road level. This road is constantly rising and falling just enough to make it fun but not enough to force the driver below the speed limit.
I skipped Old Tucson, a movie set turned amusement park, and arrived at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum shortly after eight.
"Museum" is a misleading name for this place. "Zoo and botanical garden" would be more accurate, although there are traditional museum attributes. Most of it is outside.
While working my way through the reptile and invertebrate building I briefly hooked up with an older man. We help each other spot the snakes and bugs that were hiding in their display cases behind rocks and plants. When we got to the centipede, he told me that there had been ones that long at Iwo Jima, but they had been bigger around.
The next building was a fake cave, and it was done pretty well, especially the optional tight route, which I had trouble navigating with my camera, bag, and tripod. I guess I've been in so many caves that a replica, even a good one, isn't too exciting.
It was a hot day, so most of the cats were sleeping in the rocks, and the black bear didn't seem interested in posing for photographs.
At the parrot cage I met an old couple from St. Louis. I started talking to them by defending the husband's contention that he couldn't get a decent picture of the parrot his wife wanted him to shoot.
They had been here before but had forgotten to load the camera, so they had come back.
My favorite animals were the porcupine and the javelina.
In the aviary some of the birds seemed to enjoy flying at eye level down the path, scaring visitors. The hummingbirds were in a separate aviary.
There were a lot of Senior Olympians at the museum.
Saguaro
National Park was my next stop. The young ranger at Petrified Forest
had been wrong; admission to this western section of the park was still free.
One of the best views of the park is from the visitor center. Uncountably many saguaro rise up into the mountains.
Maybe if they charged admission they could do something about the dirt roads through the park, but then there'd be more people, so it is probably better this way.
I bounced and shook and shuddered up through the foothills surrounded by saguaro, prickly pear, and other cactus. I got pictures of several saguaro blooms and even one prickly pear bloom. The latter was a waxy yellow. I had expected it to be red, since the remains I'd seen were red, but it wasn't. I guess the fruit is red, since that's the color of the candy made from the prickly pear fruit, so maybe this was fruit forming.
After bouncing out of the park I headed south from Tucson. Before long I entered another Indian reservation and stopped at the San Xavier Mission. This is a gorgeous old mission, but more entertaining was the tourist trap across the street. I looked at all the jewelry and carvings but didn't buy any. I did buy an indian tostado, fry bread covered with machaca, lettuce, tomato, onions, and salsa. It was good, very hot, but a bit pricey. Machaca is some kind of dried meat, having the consistency (in this application) of shredded barbecued pork.
Interstate 19, at least from Tucson to the border, is marked in kilometers, not miles. "This Highway Signed in Metric" the sign says. I don't know why. Is it an experiment? Is it for all the Mexican truckers?
My next stop was the Titan Missile Museum. The tour was $5 (I got a buck off for being a AAA member) and well worth it.
The museum is staffed completely by volunteers, retired people with not a lot else to do.
This was a Titan missile installation until it was decommissioned in 1984. The tour begins with a short video tape explaining the Titan's Role in Protecting the Safety of the Free World during the Cold War. Then we donned hardhats and went topside, where the boosters from the missile have been removed and are displayed.
Our tour guide was missing, so the woman who had shown us the video tape and given us our introductory talk told us all about the boosters and the door. I found it very amusing that this grandmother was talking about liquid fuels, payloads, ground bursts, and retaliatory strikes.
Our guide finally arrived, so he pointed out the nuclear explosion proof popup antenna for the radio.
Then the fun part started as we descended 55 steps to the control center of the installation. There another guide explained the workings of the scarily antique electronic equipment. For fun he and a volunteer turned the keys and started the launch sequence.
Don't worry. The missile in the silo is a dummy that has never been fueled, and the door at the top of the silo is sealed halfway open so that the Russian satellites can see that it isn't operational.
Then we went to the silo itself, where we got to stare at the beast and see dummies representing maintenance crewmen.
They didn't seem to mind that I took my tripod and kept lagging behind to take pictures. We'll see how the one of me sitting in the control chair turns out.
One of the guides, John, asked me if I was a student. When Itold him that I worked with computers for a living, he told me a long, rambling story about how one of his grandsons played with computers, and his mother had to keep buying him more powerful ones.
After the missile tour I hopped back on I-19 and took it about as far south as I could.
(Traveler's Tip: when traveling I-19 or driving in Canada, you can easily convert kilometers to miles using your speedometer as a conversion chart.)
In Nogales I checked into a motel, left most of my stuff in the room, and drove into town. I parked in a lot with a high fence topped with concertina wire about two blocks from the border. I went to the border crossing and just walked into Mexico without talking to anyone.
(This brings my totals for the trip to eight states and two countries, and my lifetime totals to 43 states but only six countries.)
I guess I didn't expect Nogales, Sonora, to look so much like Nogales, Arizona, in that it was a city with blocks of storefronts. I did expect all the sidewalk vendors, many of them children, and all the beggars.
Nothing I saw, the toys, the jewelry, the statuary, really appealed to me. I walked up and down several streets before deciding to have dinner.
I went to a restaurant that was listed in Frommer's Arizona guide. It is La Roca, and is dug into a stone hillside just to the east of the border, a few blocks from the tourist shopping area. It wasn't cheap, but it wasn't more expensive than it was worth.
The only dress code listed was that men couldn't wear sleeveless T-shirts or tank tops, so I was ok in my T-shirt and shorts.
The waiters wore white jackets and ties. The back wall was carved rock, with soot markings above the many lamps mounted on it. The menu was painted on chalk boards that the waiters brought to the table.
The menu was in English, and the prices were in American dollars. I had the La Roca shrimp: several large shrimp roasted on a skewer with sliced jalapenos and onions, then covered with cheese.
It was very good. I was just a bit thirstier than I thought and drank a bit more beer than I'd planned. It was definitely worth the money.
Crossing back into the U.S. wasn't as easy as going into Mexico. I had to stand in line with several people while a grumpy border official gave everyone the evil eye. The kid before me looked a bit scruffy and stuck out his driver's license before being asked. The official asked him how long he'd been in Mexico, why he'd gone, who he was with, and what he was bringing back with him. He said he was alone bringing nothing back. The official walked around the desk and looked him up and down, but he let him through.
Then it was my turn. He asked me where I lived, then asked what I was doing so far from home. Maybe if I hadn't had three beers with dinner I'd have said something more sensible than "just driving around".
When I said I was alone and wasn't bringing anything back with me, he asked if I was with the kid who had just gone through. Great, I thought, I'm going to be taken into a back room and strip searched. It didn't happen, and he let me go on through.
Tomorrow I start east again, I believe. I'll try to find some ghost towns, visit Tombstone during the last of Wyatt Earp Days, and finally get to see The Thing?