Tuscon, etc.

Last month in the depths of Seattle's winter (even though spring was supposed to be breaking out), in order to avoid an outbreak of the dreaded SAD (Seasonal Affect Disorder) Megan and I decided that we had to go somewhere to get some sun and warmth. Tuscon over the Easter weekend was our choice.

Even though Friday was cold and rainy and blustery, we did manage to do a bunch of touristy things, and even got to spend some quality time poolside on Saturday.  On Friday we drove down to the Amerind Museum to see a very good collection of Indian art and artifacts.  And while we were that close, we went to see the Mystery Thing a few miles away.  The Thing is that it's still a mystery, just a collection of the weirdest odds and ends ever assembled under one roof.  It was well worth the $1 admission cost!

On Saturday we went to Biosphere 2.  On previous trips to Arizona, I had driven by the place, but had never gone in to take a look. Biosphere 2 was a fascinating experiment in trying to build a self-sufficient bubble in which eight people could live indefinitely.  They called off the experiment after two full years, but I think it was amazing that it lasted that long.  They grew their own food (they were all pretty skinny after two years of a 1200 calorie per day strictly vegan diet) and even made their own air. As for the personal interactions after two years in a bubble, I think it is very telling that one of the books written by one of the participants is subtitled Two Years and Twenty Minutes.  

On Easter Sunday, we even went to Mass at the St. Xavier Mission south of Tucson.  It's been called the Sistine Chapel of North America, but I think that's at least a bit of an exaggeration.

On Sunday evening, having had enough of the poolside sun, we ventured to Mt. Lemmon to one of the observatories there, and had a fabulous (though cold) evening looking at stars, nebulae, and an amazing view of Saturn's moons and rings.

The rental car we ended up with was a Prius, and I gotta say it was pretty cool.  After some diddling and figuring out how to get the thing started, the car served us very well, and averaged over 45mpg for the time we had it.  We also used Hertz' Neverlost GPS navigation system.  It wasn't very user friendly, and I had to use one of my USB memory sticks to save destinations, but the voice of Halley (the female version of Hal, from 2001 A Space Odyssey) always got us to where we wanted to go.

I've got a few more pictures to post and a few more tales to tell, but this revised Blogger template is really annoying me, so I'll stop for now.