This morning we took off for Seguaro National Park (East). It is only about 10 miles north of the RV park. There is an 8 mile driving loop that takes you through a lot of the terrain. There are very large and old Sequaro Cacti. Donna read that a Sequaro gets its first arm around 75 years old. Wow. There are many throughout this landscape. Donna also read (Wikipedia) that the Seguaro’s are highly protected and only found in Arizona. They are very cool.
We programmed in the Sonora Desert Museum into google maps and headed that way. That museum combines a desert museum, botanical garden, and zoo. Sounds fun. Oops, on the way we found ourselves driving by Davis Monthan AFB. This is the giant boneyard of aircraft. There were hundreds of old C-130’s and other aircraft visible from the road. Also directly on our route was the PIMA Air and Space Museum. It seemed silly to pass it up on our route so we decided to see it first. Surprise, the museum is Maverick friendly so we put on the leash and headed out. The museum is great. It has 5 hangars full of WWII, and modern aircraft both military and civil. I was pleased to see a Pitts S-1S hanging from the ceiling (that’s what I flew for 17 years). It also has about 300 aircraft over 80 acres in outdoor exhibits that are really great (includes a B-36). But….as we left the first hangar the skies opened up. Did we bring the umbrella, No. Did I bring a rain coat, No, not even in the RV (don’t ask). After a very quick run around the yard we ran into the Space hangar literally dripping wet. Maverick didn’t seem to mind at all. Normally the museum runs trams through the outdoor segment but it was too muddy from recent rain. If there was any disappointment it was in the space segment. It seemed pretty lame. I think the great collection of rare aircraft is probably related to the closeness of the boneyard. IF you make arrangements 10 days in advance you can see the boneyard through a bus tour. We didn’t discover that in time.
After the museum we were hungry and had some good local BBQ for lunch. We reconsidered our plans. The rain simply would not let up, in spite of forecasts, so we decided to go to the (indoor) Mini Time Machine of Miniatures Museum. I opted to stay in the car for this one but Donna really enjoyed it. I spent my time fighting with Net Benefits on the phone over their mess up on my Lump Sum pension payment. Donna had much more fun than Mav and I.
We debated about trying for one more night in the RV park so we could see the Sonora Desert Museum. I pinged the front desk and we were going to have to move if we wanted to stay. In the end we decided to move on. By the way, temperatures during the day remained about mid-60’s, so despite the rain we were pretty comfortable.