Back to Two-Sun! Days Wun & Too

Oh give me a home, where the rattlesnakes roam
And the exits are blocked through Speedway
But the hotel's a dream
And the air's fresh and clean
And the sunshine is sparkling all dayyy!

Ahhhh, vacation!! We're still being stalked by some jetlag -- it's 8:30pm and we wanna go to bed already -- so I'll keep this short; but pictures will follow!

It's the end of our second perfect day. After a looooooong but mercifully uneventful trip west (think 24 hours, half of them spent in a remarkably small plane) we fell into the silken marshmallow that serves as our bed and conked out until 8:30 am.

Monday, we had a leisurely (and delicious, and free) breakfast at the hotel restaurant before setting out to see some lovely scenery on our way to the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum. I've been to the Museum before, but never get tired of it. It's more a zoo/nature park than your typical indoor "museum", and we saw demonstrations with venomous reptiles and with gracefully free-flying hawks as we wandered the extensive and lovingly-maintained grounds. A quick lunch in the museum cafe, a stop at the grocery store for some essentials to stock our hotel fridge, and we were already turning in again for some well-needed rest.

Today, Tuesday, we woke up incredibly early thanks to still being on Germany time, and again enjoyed our breakfast in the bright sunshine. Then it was off to poke around Sports Authority (didn't find anything, but we can't resist sports/outdoor stores), make some unique discoveries at a few artisan shops downtown (lots of southwesterly gifts to take back home!), stop off at Rum Runner to assemble a nice sampler of American brews (and pick up more gifts), catch a coffee at Bentley's, visit my much-missed Tiny House from the outside, and then swing by the University to pick up Tina. And that all before twelve!

From there, we drove through the bright sunshine down to the Titan II Missile Museum, a former-nuclear-missle-silo-turned-historic-site in Saguarita, AZ. The tour was led by a former crew member, who had personal anecdotes and detailed information to share about life in a missile silo. He selected Tina as his "control commander" and she got to demonstrate how one could have turned the key to initiate mutual nuclear annihilation. Jesus. They make a point of stressing how the existence of such weapons during the Cold War was a necessary part of the military's policy of "peace through deterrence": in other words, if anyone pulls the trigger, nobody wins. Still, it was pretty chilling.

So after ogling some weapons of mass destruction, we drove just a bit down the highway back toward Tucson and arrived at the old Spanish mission, San Xavier del Bac. They've finished restoration on the west side of the two-hundred-year-old building, and it looks beautiful; inside, an organist was practicing for Mass. Quite nice. We took some pictures just before the sun went down and then finished up the day at El Charro, the oldest Mexican restaurant in Tucson.

Well! Sorry for the rather dry report, but I am bushed! Hopefully after we adapt a bit more to the time change, I'll have some creative juice still left at the end of the day for a more entertaining recounting... until then, just wanted to say that the trip has been perfect and beautiful so far. Tomorrow, we're off to view the sister attraction to the Titan site, the Pima Air and Space Museum.

In the meantime there's a silken marshmallow of a bed waiting for me... mm, fluffy on the outside, tall handsome sleepy German on the inside... Nachty-Nacht everyone!