This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 3,777 for Friday the 13th of January 2023.
Today's show is entitled, Tucson.
It is part of the series Travel.
It is hosted by Aulka and is about 15 minutes long.
It carries a clean flag.
The summary is.
We move to Benson, a town just south east of Tucson.
Hello, this is Aulka, welcome to Hacker Public Radio and another exciting episode
and I'm continuing my travel log of our RV trip and we're going to pick up in Tucson.
Actually, Benson, which is just outside of Tucson.
On Thursday, January 13th, we moved to a different site to see if that would fix our
electrical problem and we'll see what happens.
Sherald did some socializing with a couple who pulled in to the spot next to us but then
they had a dog so that's not terribly surprising and then we did some shopping so it was
a pretty quiet day for us.
Friday, January 14th, we had one electrical dropout in the morning but that was all.
We can live with that.
I'm suspecting a low voltage condition.
When there is a dropout, the alternating current powered stuff shuts off and then comes
back on a minute later.
After breakfast, we went to the carchner caverns state park which was only about 10 miles
from our campground.
We went on a guided tour of the caverns which lasted about an hour and a half and then
watched a film about how the caverns were discovered and developed.
We were not allowed to take any pictures on this tour but I can say for sure they are extremely
serious about preserving the caverns.
We essentially went through airlocks entering and leaving and the caverns maintained
a temperature of 71 and a humidity of 98 percent continually.
And after the tour in the movie we opted for the foothills trail which was a pretty
strenuous 2.4 mile hike up and down foothills on a trail that was uneven and rocky.
We definitely had enough for the day by the time we were done with that but it was a good
day.
My knee did feel a bit of strain so I think tomorrow will be laundry day and otherwise
resting a bit.
Saturday, January 15th.
Not mostly a maintenance day, we did laundry, dump the tanks but we also went for a short
walk.
There is a nice little park next door to where we are staying so we started there.
It's observed a lot of holes in the ground that are undoubtedly made by wildlife but what
kind exactly we don't know.
We have been told that snakes are not out right now and won't be until April but this
is rattlesnake country.
So we are always cautious and stay on the paths.
We did see some quail while we are out, otherwise resting up after that hike yesterday.
Sunday, January 16th.
Today was tombstone, tombstone Arizona.
This is totally old western teach but it's well done.
It's worth a trip if you are in the area.
Now, it's not a place you'd ever go back to a second time.
They do a so-called re-enactment of the gunfight at the okay corral.
It's a timed show so you want to check the times and get your tickets.
We did so and got tickets for the one PM show and it included tickets for the tombstone
Historama which ran on the hour.
So we went there for the noon showing.
The Historama is a combination of film and models and is narrated by Vincent Price.
It gives the history of tombstone which began as a mining town and flourished until the
rising water in the mines shut everything down.
Then it quick lunch and on to the gunfight show.
Totally cheesy but fun.
We looked at exhibits afterwards then went to the bird cage theater, which at one time went
tombstone was flourishing, was bringing in major acts.
Now, the tombstone is interesting, you know, why is it called tombstone and you might
think, well, you know, wild west, all these people were shot with cult 45s and all that kind
of stuff.
That's not really where the name comes from, where the name comes from, is a miner.
So left Fort Wichuca to go and start looking for silver and one of the other people
at Fort Wichuca said, you know, the only thing you're going to find out there is your tombstone.
And so when he did strike silver, he called it the tombstone mine as a result of that
and then the town that grew up around it became known as tombstone.
So little history there.
Anyway, with all the things we didn't tombstone, that ate up most of the day.
So we went home, tired but feeling that we'd seen all we wanted to see there.
Now, Monday, January 17th, this was the day we went to the Chiri Kauha National
Monument.
Now, this is really beautiful.
And in some ways, reminded us of what we saw in Utah a few years ago, such as Bryson Zion.
Only instead of the red semen stone of the Utah parks, the rocks were grave volcanic
tough, which is rock which forms when volcanic ashes compressed over time.
Then the wind causes weathering and erosion and you get beautiful shapes.
Chiri Kauha gets his name from the Chiri Kauha patchies who once lived here.
But of course, in the usual United States way, they got moved on the land somewhere else.
They called these rock formations sky islands, which kind of makes sense because you have
mountains rising up suddenly in the middle of planes.
So it's not like a mountain range where it's just all these mountains together.
You've got a flat plane and there's suddenly a mountain in the middle of it.
We drove up a winding road to the top at Masai Point, then hike the Masai Nature Trail.
Then started on the trail to Echo Canyon, but it was very rough and downhill.
And when we considered we'd have to go back uphill every step that we went down at a certain
point we said, Nats turn around.
Then we drove back to the bottom and walked a little way along the lower Ryalite Canyon
Trail.
By then it was about 230, we were tired and we had a 90-minute drive back to the RV so
we left.
It was a good day and this is a place well worth the visit and probably spending more
than one day.
Tuesday, January, eighties.
Well, turn out to be a rainy day.
We didn't get a lot of them on this trip, but this was one.
So good for a day of rest.
We did take an empty propane tank to be refilled, but that was about it for the day.
Now, when you spend over three months on a trip like this, you don't need to go full
speed every day.
A day or two of rest every week is just fine and, in fact, is probably sensible.
Wednesday, the 19th.
We went to the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum and it was well worth the trip.
The Docent went into great detail about Soaro Cactuses and had some samples to show us
of seeds, across sections, some rib pieces and so on.
There were geological exhibits, fossils, animals, and plants.
There were examples of all the minerals to come out of the mines and some wildlife.
We saw some of the reptiles and invertebrates to populate the Sonoran Desert, a bobcat,
and we looked like about five avalinas, which is a type of pecory, distantly related
to pigs.
There was a walkthrough, aviary, and hummingbird, exhibits.
I had trouble getting a picture of the hummingbird since they're very small and move quickly.
But I think our favorite of all was the Cactus Garden, which was magnificent.
The museum is adjacent to part of the Soaro National Park, which we will visit later.
Now the Soaro National Park, interestingly, has two sections that are separated from each
other.
One is on the west side of Tucson and the other is part of the, is on the east side.
So the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum is on the west side and just up the road is the west
part of the Soaro National Park.
Now the one on the east side is near, we're, we're staying in Benson, which is on the
east side of Tucson.
On Thursday, January 20th, we would to visit Sabino Canyon, a recreation area within the
Coronado National Forest, which is operated by the Forest Service.
Happily, our National Park's pass got us free admission, and if you're, in the United
States, get your National Park's pass, we really scored well because a few years back,
they ran a special, and if you were a senior citizen, I think anyone over the age of 65,
you could get a pass, good, lifetime pass for $20, and we jumped on that and Cheryl and
I each got one.
Although we only need one, but we both, at that price, we both picked one up.
And so we get free admission to all of the National Parks, national monuments, you know,
all sorts of places, and, you know, in this place, part of the National Forest, we got
in for free.
Now, one of the things we were planning to do at this park was a guided tour via tram,
but it turned out that all the tickets for this day were sold out.
So, we thought, we bought two tickets for tomorrow.
Then we got on a tram ride to the seven-fall's trailhead.
That was not sold out, in fact, you didn't need to buy a ticket for that one.
And hiked as far as the first river crossing, of which there were several.
This involved clamoring across on rocks, and we decided that was a good place to turn around.
The hiked to the falls was six miles round trip over very uneven and rocky terrain,
so we had already decided not to try the whole thing.
I'm 70, and my darling wife is like two years younger than I am, but neither one of us
are spring chickens here, and so we have to decide what's an appropriate level of activity
for us.
Anyway, we went back to the trailhead and picked up the Bear Canyon Trail, which took
us back in the direction of the visitor center.
And then it also took us on a short side trip to see the dam.
Rivers we saw did have water in them, which we've not seen a lot of an Arizona, but it
appears the water comes out of the mountains, and we did have rain a few days back.
Every place we looked, the views were fantastic, and we took a lot of photos.
I'm just in love with this desert sandskate landscape, something we don't have in Michigan
and with a distinct kind of beauty, then we went back to the parking lot.
Did a lot of hiking today, but I'm feeling like I'm slowly getting in shape for it.
We had a couple of walking sticks donated to us by a couple who didn't need them anymore,
and we left them on the path back when we didn't need them anymore.
But we found a somewhat hot store that sold hiking and camping supplies and bought some proper
hiking poles.
So many of these desert hiking paths are on rough ground, and the poles can really help.
Oh, Friday, January 21st, back to Sabino Canyon, where we had tickets for the 1pm tram tour.
The road we took cross Sabino Creek several times, and it one place the creek flowed over
the crossing instead of under.
Now the water is a combination of rainfall and winter snow melt from Mount Lemon, and
made for a very scenic tour.
After that we hiked back to the dam, this time approaching it from the west side, yesterday
we were on the east side.
Then on the way back we detoured into a nature walk and spotted a crusted soarrow with a very
interesting shape.
Now a crusted soarrow is one where, soarrow cactuses typically just grew up as a straight
pole with maybe one or two branches at a certain point, but a crusted one suddenly sprouts
multiple branches at a certain point.
So we get some pictures of this, and by the way the links in the show notes you can see
all the pictures we took.
So by the time we got down it was 230 and time to get going, our route took us by the
Davis Monton Tucson Air Force Base, and kind of looked like a storage facility for older
planes.
We saw a lot of propeller driven planes that looked to be in long-term storage.
This space is very near the Pima Air and Space Museum we visited earlier, and we finally
made our way back home.
Saturday the 22nd, after two days of strenuous hiking at Sabino Canyon, we woke up to a
cooler overcast day with rain in the forecast, and it was about time to do some laundry.
So today looks like a day of rest later on, some shopping.
Another Sunday, January 23rd, another cool overcast day with rain threatening, so we
again stayed in the RV.
Now I brought a laptop for gaming, so I went back to my game of Alpha Centauri and
won it by cornering the energy market, though I could have won it anyway I chose since
I was so dominant, and then I started another game.
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