Planes & cacti....
From Tombstone we headed onto Tucson the next day. We did a quick visit with my god mother, checked out some cacti and managed to squeeze in a trip to the PIMA Air & Space Museum airplane boneyard. It was a jam-packed day!
The airplane boneyard at the museum was always on Gav's list of must-sees. If you've ever seen the 80's flick, Can't Buy Me Love, you'll remember the airplane graveyard scene. Let's just say, it wasn't quite as romantic as it was in the movie. But, anyway. Trying to navigate their website and figure out if we could get day-of ticket or needed a reservation was next to impossible. So, we opted to show up when they opened and hope for the best. We arrived right after opening time and there were at least 20 people in the line in front of us. Almost a half hour later, we got our hands on tickets for a tour that morning.
Starting on November 1st, you now have to make a reservation 2 weeks in advance, for security reasons, to do the boneyard tour. The boneyard is located on the Davis-Monthan Airforce Base. The conspiracy theorist in me can't help but wonder if this security change has to do with our current president. Or maybe it will just make it quicker to get tour on and off base quicker. You decide... Our 2 hour tour included almost 45 minutes of waiting in a security area to get on the base...so maybe it will improve the experience. The tour is done on an air conditioned motorcoach and you don't get to get off the bus, other than the security stop. I'm not a diehard plane aficionado, so was a bit bored here and there, but it was pretty cool, just seeing the sheer volume of planes that are on the property.
This one was definitely my favourite:
After some life maintenance (groceries, RV parts, etc), we headed to Saguaro National Park, on the west side of town. Visiting with a trailer was tricky, the roads in the park aren't great, they're narrow and sandy. The road just before entering the park had an amazing array of saguaros, but because of the trailer, we weren't able to stop and get any photos there. The national park still had plenty to offer, but if you ever visit, be sure to drive in or out on Kinney Road, to the east of the park entrance.
Saguaros are the classic southwest cacti that you think of when you hear Arizona or watch a western film. Interestingly, they only actually grow in a very small geographical area: in the Sonoran Desert (around Tucson), the Sonora state of Mexico and the Whipple Mountains and Imperial County of California. A few more fun facts about these spiky giants:
The airplane boneyard at the museum was always on Gav's list of must-sees. If you've ever seen the 80's flick, Can't Buy Me Love, you'll remember the airplane graveyard scene. Let's just say, it wasn't quite as romantic as it was in the movie. But, anyway. Trying to navigate their website and figure out if we could get day-of ticket or needed a reservation was next to impossible. So, we opted to show up when they opened and hope for the best. We arrived right after opening time and there were at least 20 people in the line in front of us. Almost a half hour later, we got our hands on tickets for a tour that morning.
Starting on November 1st, you now have to make a reservation 2 weeks in advance, for security reasons, to do the boneyard tour. The boneyard is located on the Davis-Monthan Airforce Base. The conspiracy theorist in me can't help but wonder if this security change has to do with our current president. Or maybe it will just make it quicker to get tour on and off base quicker. You decide... Our 2 hour tour included almost 45 minutes of waiting in a security area to get on the base...so maybe it will improve the experience. The tour is done on an air conditioned motorcoach and you don't get to get off the bus, other than the security stop. I'm not a diehard plane aficionado, so was a bit bored here and there, but it was pretty cool, just seeing the sheer volume of planes that are on the property.
This one was definitely my favourite:
After some life maintenance (groceries, RV parts, etc), we headed to Saguaro National Park, on the west side of town. Visiting with a trailer was tricky, the roads in the park aren't great, they're narrow and sandy. The road just before entering the park had an amazing array of saguaros, but because of the trailer, we weren't able to stop and get any photos there. The national park still had plenty to offer, but if you ever visit, be sure to drive in or out on Kinney Road, to the east of the park entrance.
Saguaros are the classic southwest cacti that you think of when you hear Arizona or watch a western film. Interestingly, they only actually grow in a very small geographical area: in the Sonoran Desert (around Tucson), the Sonora state of Mexico and the Whipple Mountains and Imperial County of California. A few more fun facts about these spiky giants:
- The first arm on a saguaro doesn't typically appear until the cacti is between 50 and 70 years.
- Saguaros can live as long as 200 years.
- They can grow up to 60 feeet.
- They can weigh up to 4,800 pounds when fully hydrated.
Not a Saguaro, but I like his Mohawk look
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