It was an unusual flight to be on - Orlando to Phoenix considering neither place is our home, but it was a bit of a last minute decision to help Nicole with a bit of research for a script she is working on. On this flight, Olympian Michael Phelps was riding in first class. Nicole and I were in the last row, so we never saw him again as it took about 30 minutes to deplane. Our time in Phoenix was brief as we immediately rented a car and began driving south toward Tucson.
Nicole is working on a script regarding missileers, the crews who are in charge of America's nuclear weapons, and Tucson is the only remaining Titan II missile site in existence (albeit deactivated per nuclear treaties from the 80s). As we drove around the Tucson area and checked into our hotel, got dinner etc, we discovered that we were about 30-50 years younger than everyone we encountered. Traffic moved . . . slowly down the roads. Most of the luggage on the airport conveyor belt consisted of golf clubs. The Q-tips were in down, and in large numbers.
This age gap did not change when we got to the missile site itself. There were 25 people on the tour, and all but 3 (including us) were over the age of 65. Nevertheless, they were active enough to be capable of walking down the many steps to reach the base of the missile and the missile control room. It was good to get some insight into the inner workings of a missile site that contained the most powerful warhead in U.S. history. Apparently the explosive power would have been 650x that of the atomic bombs dropped over Japan. So that's some food for thought considering the U.S. still has 450 land-based missiles alone. It is a bit overkill, but what do I know. Anyway, on our way back to the city from the missile site, we stopped at the San Xavier del Bac Mission.
There we encountered more Q-tips, but enjoyed the sunshine and deep blue skies that flanked the mission. After that we spent a brief amount of time in downtown Tucson for some tacos and tortas and headed back to the Snowbird Inn to relax for the rest of the evening.
All in all, it was a relaxing time in Tucson despite the old folks oggling us and making us feel a bit out of place. Come March, I presume things will normalize.
It was an unusual flight to be on - Orlando to Phoenix considering neither place is our home, but it was a bit of a last minute decision to help Nicole with a bit of research for a script she is working on. On this flight, Olympian Michael Phelps was riding in first class. Nicole and I were in the last row, so we never saw him again as it took about 30 minutes to deplane. Our time in Phoenix was brief as we immediately rented a car and began driving south toward Tucson.
