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July 29, 2004
Riding Around America: First Day in Tucson
It's been a busy couple of days here in Tucson so I'll do the best I can to relate everything that's been going on, starting with this brief post about yesterday. Pictures will be on the way in the next day or so.
The train did not make up any time at all as we rode through Texas and New Mexico so I ended up arriving in Tucson a ridiculous 8 hours late. Josh picked me up at the train station at about 5:30 in the morning. We went back to his place where he gave me a quick tour and then I went to sleep for a couple of hours.
Later in the morning we went out for breakfast and then decided to go to the Pima Air and Space Museum, one of the largest in the country. Along the way we started talking about baseball at which point Josh realized that the Twins were playing the White Sox on ESPN. So we took a detour, found a sports bar and watched the Twins sweep the White Sox in the final game of the series.
After the game we headed out to the museum and took a tram ride around the site, while our tour guide told us about some of the planes. Unfortunately, it started raining and our guide cancelled the rest of the tour so we missed some B-52's and the rare Migs (Russian jets). The museum was OK but the price of admission is a bit steep. Before we left we arranged to take a tour of the aircraft boneyard. More about that later.
Next we went and saw a sneak preview of the movie "Harold and Kumar go to White Castle" which one of Josh's friends had obtained tickets for. It was surprisingly entertaining and very funny. Maybe even worth actually paying for. So for a free movie it was pretty good. Time will tell if it does well at the box office.
After the movie the plan was to track rattlesnakes, which is part of Josh's job as a herpetologist here. Unfortunately, he had loaned the tracking gear to someone and couldn't get it back in time so were out of luck. So we decided to do the tracking tomorrow since my train will probably be late again and we can go out at dusk.
We headed back to Josh's place and then decided to go out with a few of his friends. We ended up hitting about three bars and had a pretty good time. In the first bar we caught a bit of live music which was alright. We closed out the evening with some Mexican food at Losbetos. It was pretty good and I haven't had the ill effects the following day that I was warned about which is good. I'd like to thank Josh, John, Mary and Erin for showing me a good time in downtown Tucson.
It will be sad to have leave this place. The scenery here is beautiful. Various mountain groups surround Tucson on nearly every side. There is virtually no grass and residents decorate their yards with gravel and stones. There are prickly pear and Saguaro cactus everywhere and palms trees are prevalent as well. The weather is hot and dry but the evenings are clear, crisp and cool. It's a beautiful place.
I will end this post and summary of yesterday's events here but will write again in the next couple of days to bring everything up to date. Right now I just don't have time due to all the things we have planned before I leave. So stay tuned and thanks for reading!
Posted on July 29, 2004 at 4:31 PM