With Nicole in tow, we left Los Angeles last night for Tucson. It was a cool 97 when we touched down. Since I had a long overnight in Tucson, Nicole decided to rent a car. The following morning we drove east of the city to the Tanque Verde Ranch, the shooting location of Nickelodeon's
Hey Dude. Nicole was a big fan. She showed me a few episodes prior to going to Tucson. It was your standard Nickelodeon fare complete with jokes that landed flat delivered by kids who couldn't act, but I suppose as a kid, it would have been enjoyable.
Nowadays, the set is basically collapsing on itself and has been abandoned since shooting ended in the early 90s. We could feel the temperature rising as we walked around the ranch. It was only about 10am, but 100 degrees. Since we were already in the area, we continued to Saguaro National Park. We only had flip flops and it was quite hot and dry, so we weren't really fixing to go for any hikes. We just did a loop drive through the park that had a few pulloffs to look at the cacti. We saw some javelinas, or pig-like mammals, asleep in the shade of the visitor's center. I get it. It's hard to do anything on a day like today. It was now 110 degrees.
After the short loop through the park, we continued on toward Pima Air & Space Museum.
The desert surrounding the air force base is known as "the boneyard" and contains the remnants of older military aircraft that have been retired from service or are no longer needed to meet the country's needs. We visited the museum after chugging some Gatorade. There were various exhibits inside, within range of overworked air conditioning systems, but the most interesting sites were outside. There were examples of military aircraft, civilian airliners of past and present, and even some old MiGs.
Naturally all of this was probably a lot more interesting to me than Nicole. I was frolicking amongst the petting zoo of aircraft and Nicole was dragging behind me, her body slowly succumbing to the heat. If I spent to much time with the B-52s and KC-135s, I'd be peeling Nicole off the ground like a fried egg.
After getting some Mexican food for lunch, we went back to the hotel to relax before getting ready for our flights. It was now 116 degrees. Supposedly Phoenix SkyHarbor airport closed down a few years back because the temps got so hot that takeoff performance could not be calculated since it was off the scales. Anyway, that's my next stop and it's supposed to be 120 tomorrow. At least I'm not flying the 200 anymore.
