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Winter Trip - January-March 2019
Arizona

We stayed in Tucson for a few nights to visit Saguaro National Park & Biosphere 2. The Quality Inn we stayed at was possibly the worst experience we have had at a place we stayed. When we arrived we found the parking lot jam packed with tents & easy-ups, due to a gem and mineral show. We got lucky when a car left one of the few parking spaces not being used by the merchants. When we checked in, we were treated like we were a nuisance. The room we were given was really tiny. The first two mornings what was supposed to be a hot breakfast was actually just toast, instant oatmeal, & stale cold cereal served in a little cubby hole behind some vendors setup in the lobby. The third morning enough vendors had left so they had the regular breakfast room open, but the breakfast still consisted of what had been available the first two mornings. When Ernie walked into the breakfast room he was a few inches short of a door on the right, which was suddenly thrown open with a lot of force. If he had taken one more step he would have been violently hit by the door. The staff member that came out the doorway brushed past Ernie giving him a look that seemed to say "What are you doing in my way!" The staff and other guest, mostly vendors, were extremely rude. When we checked out the receipt we received showed they charged us greater than $50 more than we expected for the first night. Ernie was afraid he would blow-up at the people so he just left without saying anything about it. There are a lot of choices for places to stay in Tucson, we suggest you avoid the Quality Inn at 750 West Starr Pass Boulevard, Tucson, AZ.

After leaving Tucson we went to visit some relatives in Arizona & Nevada, on the way we passed through Kingman, AZ. The night of the day after we arrived and all the next day there was a major winter storm all around us, but not where we were. Hit hard by the storm was Kingman, AZ, where we planned to go after we finished visiting everyone, and most of the area we were to pass through on our way to visit the relatives in Nevada. Most of Nevada was clear of snow by the time we drove through it. The exceptions were several snow covered mountains and the area near Searchlight, NV where the ground was still covered by snow. We ate lunch in Searchlight, when we left there we saw a lot of cars heading the other way stopped at the side of the road with the people from the cars, not just young people, kicking around in the snow. A little further along we saw a young mother and her 10 or 11 year old daughter having a snowball fight on the side of the road. There was 3-4 inches of snow along the side of the road and then suddenly there was no snow, it was as if a line had been drawn with snow on one side and none on the other.

The places of interest we went to in Arizona were:

Arizona Itinerary
  Tombstone, AZ
  Saguaro National Park
  Biosphere 2
  Kingman, AZ
  Old Tucson

Tombstone, AZ
Tombstone, AZ is where the "Gunfight at the OK Corral" happened. It was a very prosperous silver mining town. There were two major fires that each destroyed more than 60% of the buildings. In each case the town was restored within a few months. The silver mines began to flood from water coming up from below them, pumps were installed to clear the water so the mining could continue. The water became so bad the pumps failed to keep it cleared. The town became almost deserted, then it was named a national heritage site and evolved into a thriving tourist site. All this led to it being given the nickname "The Town That Wouldn't Die".
There are several things to do in Tombstone, each thing has a fee to do it. None of the fees is exorbitant, but they can add up to be quite expensive. Because you do not have many choices, the restaurant prices are exorbitant.
We watched some skits done in the street, no fee required. The skits involved notorious events that took place in Tombstone. one was about someone named Big John taking a saloon girl from someone who had paid for her, then beating up the guy who paid for the girl and two of his friends. The other two skits involved killings, one of Warren Earp, a lesser known and much hated Earp brother, by Johnny Boyett and one about the stabbing of a saloon girl named Margarita by the wife of a man she was fooling around with. The skits were done in humorous manner.
Of course we viewed the reenactment of "The Gunfight at the OK Corral". This too was done in a humorous manner. The $10 per person fee included the reenactment, an interesting multi-media presentation about the history of Tombstone, and a souvenir newspaper. The person who played Doc Holiday was also the narrator and was really funny. The actual location of the gunfight is just outside the reenactment site. There were eight people involved in the gunfight, four on each side. They formed two lines facing each other no more than 10 feet apart. Billy Clanton and Tom & Frank McLaury were killed. The other one, Ike Clayton, was unarmed and ran away through the saloon and out the other side.
We ate a very expensive lunch at the OK Cafe, then paid $10 per person to take a stagecoach ride around town. The driver narrated the tour, but of course Ernie could not hear him, but that was OK because Ernie just wanted to ride in a stagecoach which he had never done before.
We did something we don't normally do, we bought a souvenir for each of us, tee shirts with nice Christian messages.
It was a really good day that due to our being fussy about what we did, did not add up to a great amount. (Pictures)

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Saguaro National Park
The government had been reopened for a couple of weeks so we decided that since we were in the area we would visit Saguaro National Park. While there Ernie asked a ranger if any damage had been done during the shutdown, she said everyone had been respectful and no damage had been done. The park is divided into two parts, East & West, we decided to visit the West section first as the ranger walks & talks we wanted to participate in at that location were available on the first day we were to do the park. While there we were informed that going to the East would not present anything different so we decided to do something else later. The name of the park as well as the names of some of the vegetation at the park are Mexican names, so g is pronounced as w and l is pronounced as y. The pronunciation of the park name is sa·WAH·row.
We planned on doing two ranger walks "A Stroll Through Our Living Desert" & "Desert Jigsaw Puzzle" and listen to one ranger talk "Marvelous Mimicry". We arrived about an hour before the the first walk so we watched a very interesting video about the history of the park area and wandered around the area near the visitor center until it was time for the walk. The ranger who led the walk was a young lady who was well-informed, interesting, and amusing. We stopped several times along the walk where the plants we were looking at were discussed. The most prominent plants were the Saguaro Cactus, different forms of Cholla (choy·YAH) Cactus, different forms of Barrel Cactus, Pin Cushion Cactus, Creosote Bush, Prickly Pear Cactus, and Ocotillo (oh·ko·tee·yo) Tree. We got back just in time for the start of the second walk, about half way through this walk we realized that we were being given the same information in a different format. We decided to skip the rest of this walk and had some lunch. We read on line no food or drink is available at the park, so we had stopped at a grocery store and picked up some fruit for lunch.
After lunch we spent some time in the visitor center, with more than an hour left before the talk was to start we decided that the talk would not contain much new information and decided to leave the park.
On the way to the park we had stopped at the Desert Museum, which is a privately owned business. We did not go into the museum, but possibly if we are in the Tucson area in the future we may spend a day here. On the way back after visiting the park, we stopped at Old Tucson which is a tourist attraction where several movies, mostly westerns, have been shot. There were only a couple of more hours before it closed so we decided to visit it some other time. (Pictures)

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Biosphere 2
When we were visiting our son Michael a year or so ago he was watching a reality program of Ozzie Osborn traveling to places of interest. The episode we saw included Ozzie & his daughter visiting Biosphere 2. Ernie decided this was a place he wanted to visit, since we were going to be in the Tucson area we decided to include it on this trip. Biosphere 2 is in Oracle, AZ, but it is just a few miles outside of Tucson.
Biosphere 2 is a controlled environment that is used for large scale study of the processes of the Earth. Biosphere 1 is the Earth, but controlled experimentation cannot be done outside as the weather & other elements cannot be controlled. Biosphere 2 was built by a private company to study people living in an enclosed environment. Eight people lived in this closed environment for a little over two years during which time they were regularly examined to determine the physical and emotional effect on them. It was then opened to scientist to experiment on the effect of changes in the environment on the processes of the Earth. Colombia University ran the facility for a while then it was given to the University of Arizona.
Houses have been built outside the controlled environment using environment friendly materials and in a way to use a minimal amount of resources to heat, cool, and maintain them. Several cities are looking into using these processes to build environment friendly housing in the cities.
In the closed domes & buildings there are several different environments including: rain forest, desert, ocean, and fruit orchards. Some of the important results that have been discovered:
We did the general tour, which included visiting the different areas, the area where the machinery used to control the environment, and the lung used to maintain atmospheric pressure in the buildings. (Pictures)

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Kingman, AZ
After visiting relatives we were returning to Tucson. We stopped in Kingman, AZ to visit the Mohave Museum of History and Arts. The museum consist of:
  Hall of Presidents with pictures of all the presidents & their wives
  Route 66 Exhibit Hall with pictures and memorabilia from when Route 66 was the "Mother Road of America"
  Native American Room with pictures and artifacts from Native Americans that lived in the area
  Dollhouse Exhibit which contains some very impressive dollhouses
  Ranching Exhibit with pictures and stories about area ranchers & ranches
  Mining Exhibit with pictures and stories about area mines
  Andy Devine Exhibit with pictures, stories, and memorabilia of Andy Devine, they also had a Roy Rogers movie with Andy Devine playing
  Kingman Army Air Field Exhibit with pictures and stories about area military people
  Wild Life Display with several stuffed animals & birds
In case you are not aware, Andy Devine was an actor that was the sidekick in over 300 western movies and several western TV series. He was also in several movies that were not westerns for a total of over 400 movies. Though he was known for being in B movies, he was second to only Walter Brennan in the number of A movies in which he appeared. He was also in a number of stage productions, some of which were musicals.
When we went into the museum we were informed that our ticket would also get us into Arizona Route 66 Museum and Bonelli House Museum. By the time we finished with the Mohave Museum of History and Arts the Bonelli House Museum was closed and we were heading out first thing the next morning so we did not get to visit it.
We did visit the Arizona Route 66 Museum. Most Route 66 museums we have visited were basically old cars and memorabilia. This was different as it was mostly displays about the history of the area starting well before Route 66 existed through the heyday of Route 66. There is also a display of old electric cars.
We ate at the Route 66 Cafe, directly across the street from the Route 66 Museum. This was a very good day. (Pictures)

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Old Tucson
When we planned the trip we scheduled to return to Tucson to do the east section of Saguaro National Park, but we discovered that we would not see anything different nor learn anything more than at the west section. Returning from Saguaro National Park West we stopped at Old Tucson, deciding it was too late to see much we decided that this is where we would go when we returned to Tucson.
The full name is Old Tucson Studios. More than 300 movies were shot here, when including TV shows, music videos, and commercials the total is over 400. Most of the movies and TV shows are westerns.
Most of the buildings are just facades, so there are not many to go into, but we did visit a couple of them. We went into Town Hall where there is information about life in the old west including pictures of famous and infamous people, many of whom fall into both categories. In Town Hall there are dioramas made up of figures hand-carved by Jerry Berg. We watched a video about John Wayne movies that were shot at Old Tucson. We went to the Grand Palace for three shows: Outside shows that we watched are; We walked around the town checking out things such as the chapel and its cemetery with humorous epitaphs on the grave markers. We also checked The Reno Locomotive, which was used in several movies including Joe Kidd in which Clint Eastwood drives the train into the saloon. We also rode the train around the outer border of the town.
We started the day with one of its main highlights, a walking tour with a very interesting, humorous tour guide. As much as we enjoyed Tombstone, we liked Old Tucson even more.
(Pictures)

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Last updated:   mar 16 2019