Author: Rudy

Tuesday: After a quick breakfast we hit the road to Tucson. The day was a bit nicer than the weekend weather had been, but it was still quite cool.

Our first stop was at the Pima Air & Space Museum. We thought we were too late for the 10:30 tour, but we quickly bought tickets to 2 tours that fit our schedule. In fact, one tour was going to run right up to the next, so we decided we better get something to eat before our first tour left. We ordered a hot dog and fries and coffee from the museum restaurant. While we waited for our food the tram outside the restaurant window was filling up quickly. Then it left! We were still waiting for our food. Quick check with the ticket taker and we were reassured that another tram was coming. We actually gobbled up the hot dog and took the fries and coffee with us on the tram.

It was an open tram, and we were a little under-dressed for the cold wind. Our tour guide was a retired pilot, 15 years in the air force followed by a career as a commercial pilot. He was extremely knowledgeable about all the different aircraft we looked at as we circled the big outdoor yard at the museum. I think he knew everything about every type of aircraft on display — and he clearly loved to drive around and tell us about them. He was an excellent guide. He was also a war movie buff and identified many of the planes as the one that Jimmy Stewart flew in such-and-such movie. In fact, at one aircraft he stopped and told us that he himself had been a pilot of a plane like that in Vietnam and had been part of the rescue mission for a downed American pilot caught in the cross-fire in a river. The story was made into a movie, “Bat 21”, starring Gene Hackman. When we got home I looked up the movie and actually downloaded it so we can watch it sometime.

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After our tour we were invited to visit the various hangars and buildings in which many more aircraft were on display. We were cold. We opted to sit in the warm restaurant and have another coffee before going on our next tour.

Our second tour was the Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Center (AMARG), also known as the “Boneyard.” The facility is located adjacent to the Museum at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base. The bus drove us around the 26 acres of neatly parked planes. Our tour guide was once again a retired pilot — this one had served in the Air Force for 30 years. Like the first guide, he was knowledgeable and seemed to genuinely enjoy what he was doing. It seemed that all the docents at the museum put in lots of volunteer time, many coming from other parts of the US to Arizona for the winter in order to spend time at the museum. The guide’s talk was accompanied by a soundtrack of clicking cameras. All around us were people with big cameras and huge lenses, and they were snapping hundreds of photos at each pause along the route. I’m not sure how they will cull and catalog their photos! We actually never got off the bus, so all of the photos here were through the windows of the bus. But we were happy to be sitting in the warm bus, sheltered from the cold wind.

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After the AMARG tour we got back into our van and headed to the Saguaro National Park. The park actually has two parks, one on either side of the city of Tucson. We went to the East park because it wasn’t far from the museum and we were told it had a loop drive that we could do. It was already 3 or 4 in the afternoon and we were running out of time.

The Eastern Rincon Mountain District rises to over 8,000 feet and includes over 128 miles of trails. We followed the Cactus Forest Drive, a one-way 9-mile drive just south of the Santa Catalina Mountains. We parked our van and went for a 2-mile hike along some of the marked trails. We expected to see a forest of saguaros. While the desert vegetation was very beautiful, we both agreed that we see more saguaros along the Hieroglyphic trail in Gold Canyon!

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On our drive back home we stopped in Catalina to refuel the van — gas was $3.68/gallon as compared to $4.00 in Phoenix. We got home just as the sun was setting. Stopped for a couple of photos of our own Superstition Mountain with the sun setting behind us. Sue warmed up leftovers and we sat in the living room and watched various reruns on TV. All that adventure tuckered us out and we were off to bed before midnight.

Monday: The rain is done. Superstition has a layer of white at the top. It’s still pretty cool for Arizona. Too cold to drive to Tucson and tour fields of airplanes and cacti. So it will be an ‘at-home’ day. We read for most of the day. By late afternoon the sun was out and the snow was mostly melted off the top of the mountain. We put on long pants and sweaters and went for a walk around the neighbourhood. Sue made chicken enchiladas for supper. We watched a couple of my downloaded movies — “Summer of Love” and the documentary “The Thin Blue Line”, both good shows. Sue skyped with her Winnipeg book club girls for a bit. We watched the Lang and O’Leary Report on CBC and then Letterman — and then off (back?) to bed.

Sunday: The start of a cold and wet few days here in Gold Canyon. Woke up at 7 and watched our Sunday morning news shows. Sue made pancakes (with fruit) for breakfast. We read for a couple of hours and waited for lunch time to arrive. It was raining quite hard for quite a long time. I saw a couple of brightly colored cardinals in the tree outside the window. That was before the hard rain began. And then it hailed!

Thunder, lightning, pouring rain, snow, sleet, hail. YUCK! We watched golf in the afternoon. It continued to rain. We read.
We went for a little ride before heading to the Peters’ place for supper. The rain had stopped and the sun was peaking through the clouds, lighting up Superstition Mountain. It looked great!

Lyle was busy in the kitchen when we arrived at the Peters’. Indian food. Three delicious dishes. Lots of food. A very fine meal. After dinner we sat in the living room and visited until around 9:30. We got home and looked online to see if a visit to Tucson would work for tomorrow. Might be too cold and rainy. Watched a bit of TV and went to bed.

Saturday, St Patrick’s Day: Bacon and eggs for breakfast. Skyped with Alex. Read all morning. Watched some golf on TV in the afternoon. Ed Peters called to invite me to go golfing Sidewinder with him and Lyle — I declined. We’ll get together tomorrow.

It was windy and a bit cooler today. Forecast for the next few days is rain and cold. (At home in Steinbach it hit 19 degrees!) So at around 3:30 we called Mountain Brook Golf Course and got an immediate tee time. Sue and I walked the front nine, shooting pretty good. When we were done we re-did holes 1, 2 and 9. Still not dark at 6:30. We headed to the Firehouse Bar for a Guinness to celebrate St. Patty’s Day.

Had leftovers for supper. It was 8 o’clock by the time we sat down to watch one of my downloaded movies. We watched Ikiru, A 1952 Japanese film. Subtitles. Black and white. Not bad, not great. We were tired and went to bed soon after that.

Friday: Because it was supposed to be another hot day, we went for our morning hike early today. Actually, I got up early today — 6:00am. So I had time to finish reading my Louis Zamperini (Unbroken) book. Then we went for a hike up Silly Mountain. In the afternoon Sue read, I talked to Koop on the phone for a bit. At 4:30 we went to pick up our next DVD at Walgreens and then headed to the golf course. We golfed the back nine today — Sue thought it was great. I played poorly, lost too many balls, had way too many terrible shots. But the scenery was great. We were done at around 6:30. Stopped by at Bashas on the way home — Sue picked up a few groceries and some cheese for tonight’s ‘cheeseburger’ pizza; I picked up some Guinness. Sampled a few of the beers with my pizza. Then we watched two episodes of Kitchen Nightmares and one episode of 20/20. By the time that was done (10pm) I was nodding off in my chair. Went to bed. It’s supposed to be windy tomorrow, then cold and rainy on Sunday and Monday. Not quite the weather we’ve sort of come to expect here.

Thursday: Another hot day coming up today. Got up before 8. Read a bit. Went for a bike ride at 10, and picked up a movie at Walgreens for tonight. Read some more. Really am liking my book, “Unbroken”. Sue finished her book club book, “The Rain Before It Falls”.

Then at 4:15 we teed off at Mountain Brook — hadn’t golfed now for quite a few days (Sunday). It was great! Last ones on the course, hardly had to wait for anyone, had some good holes and some bad ones, shot 51, Sue 52.

When we got home I lit the barbecue. Sue talked on the phone with Alex a bit. Had BBQ chicken and mashed potatoes and asparagus. Yummy. Then we sat down to watch our movie, “Young Adult”.

Tonight after 10pm Ed and Val and Bev and Lyle are arriving here in Gold Canyon. Weather is pretty hot here — and unseasonable warm in Manitoba too. Sue says it’s supposed to cool down (and rain) on Sunday and Monday. We’ll see.

Wednesday: Did nothing again today. Too hot to spend any length of time outside. In the morning I downloaded a whole library of ebooks again — I now have over 4000 books! I finished reading my eBook on my kindle (10 Degrees of Reckoning, a book about a sailing accident near New Zealand). I started my next book, Unbroken, another sea disaster book. By late afternoon we were ready for happy hour. Then Sue made manicotti for supper. After supper we watched our usual shows, followed by my download of the HBO movie “Game Change” (the Sarah Palin for vice president story). It was pretty good. We watched some late night TV before going to bed. And that’s how we spent 3.14 of 2012.

Tuesday: No, not those Giants! The San Francisco Giants. Lost to the Chicago Cubs. This very hot afternoon, at the Giants home park in Scottsdale. Lawn seats $15 each. Full house. Sat on beach towels. By the time we left the temperature read-out in the van said 36 degrees.

Went for a walk to Walgreens in the morning, returned our DVD rental. Had an early lunch so that we could get to the stadium in Scottsdale before 1:00. Hoped to buy scalpers tickets for cheap. Walked all around the stadium — scalpers were asking face value or better. Finally Sue bought $15 lawn seats from the ticket booth just as I found a pair of seats over the dugout for $20 apiece. It was lucky that we found a spot on the lawn not far from a tree — so after the first few innings I actually was sitting in the shade.

The Cubs were in control of the game early on. I read my book for the last few innings.

Got home and had happy hour. Then we barbecued bacon cheeseburgers and had some more of that delicious leftover potato salad. Watched Daily Show reruns and 60 Minute reruns. I tried to read some more of my ‘shipwreck’ disaster story on my Kindle. Wiped. Went to bed at 10pm!

Monday: We were going to go to a baseball game today, but never got around to it. The weather was perfect. Sat outside and read. Sue did laundry. At 11 we hopped on our bikes for a ride to Walgreens and back, with little side trips to ‘Deerfield’ and around Ed and Val’s loop. After lunch we read some more. Looked up tickets to ball games on Stubhub.com — maybe we’ll check that out a bit more later in the week. I ordered a keypad deadbolt for our front door at home from Amazon. I finished reading the story of Mellissa Fung, a CBC journalist kidnapped in Afghanistan, on my new Kindle. Love the Kindle. Book was okay. Barbecued bacon-wrapped steak for supper. Sue made potato salad. Then we watched our movie, “The Skin I Live In”, a Spanish movie with subtitles. Weird but interesting. A bit of CBC news from home and Sue went to bed early. I started reading my next book, “Ten Degrees of Reckoning”.

Sunday: Morning TV shows were off a bit — because of Daylight Savings Time, which Arizona does not observe, we missed Fareed the first time around. Good thing CNN repeats it a couple of hours later. No French toast today because we don’t have French bread to go with our French pork sausages and French icing sugar and French syrup, so we had regular toast. Read a bit, I on my new Kindle, Sue one of Jill’s “Paula Dean” books. After lunch Sue made a few phone calls: brother Al, Karen Pries (tips for her upcoming visit to Greece). I watched golf on TV. Inspiring. Then at 3:30 we went golfing — first to the driving range, then our regular nine holes. Conditions: excellent. Performance: Sue almost quit before finishing the first hole, Rudy had poor luck using Tim’s driver, but scored low 50s and was happy with his game. Sue has decreed that we will not be golfing Mountain Brook again for a while — that course is cursed. She will find us a better course where we will be able to once and for all conquer that game.

Supper was leftover stir-fry for Rudy, porridge for Sue. Then “60 Minutes”. Then a movie on TV (we returned “The Rum Diaries” to Walgreens today without having watched it). We cried our way through “My Sister’s Keeper”. Then a bit of “Fox Sunday” rerun, with guest Newt Gingrich. Ended the day watching Holmes rip apart an old house and rebuild it according to code — what a great show!