Our highlights this week include a concert by the Tucson Symphony and a performance of “Ain’t Misbehaving”. We also visited the Tubac Presidio which has the printing press that was used to launch Arizona’s first newspaper. It still works just fine.

Mostly we’re goofing off and enjoying some very nice weather. I hope this finds everyone doing well.

The big storm is no big deal in Tucson. We got about half an inch of rain yesterday and expect another inch today. Most locals want more rain, and also more snow fo rMt. Lemon, a local ski resort.

This was an interesting week. We visited the Spanish mission at Tumacacori. Their website said they had docent guided tours daily at 11:00. Unfortunately, the Thursday docent doesn’t do her tour every week. The knowledge of the rangers we met was abysmal. They could point us to the bathroom, the museum, and a (not free) booklet. That pretty much exhausts what they know. Fortunately, the park service did a terrific job of explaining the site history in their signs. I was surprised how honest they were about the poverty of this mission. For example, they had a separate building used as viewing room (for the deceased). They didn’t have the funds to build the planned dome roof. My biggest surprise was to see flowing water in Santa Cruz river. Most of the rivers around here are dry most of the year.

Tumacacori has several interesting elements. It’s about 40 miles south of Tucson, not far from Nogales, Mexico. We knew we weren’t far from the border, but we were still surprised when we encountered a border patrol check point in the north-bound direction. An ICE officer stood in the middle of the two-lane interstate, looking at the faces of the people in the cars, and either waving traffic through or stopping it to check credentials.

I-19 is interesting in its own self. All mileage markers and exit numbers are metric (Kilometers instead of miles). I remember a very long time ago, there was a push to change the US to the metric measurement system. The effort failed. I-19 was built during the height of this speculation. They posted metric distances as an experiment. When the movement failed, all the signs were up. It might be the only significant US highway using metric measure.

Our last surprise was the best. We stopped at a small Mexican cafe close to Tumacacori, called Wisdom’s Cafe. This being a rather rural area, we didn’t expect much. But we got an excellent lunch. The current owners are the third generation to run the place. The have a desert they call a fruit Burro. It’s a fruit-pie filling in a deep-fried dough (a kind of sweet chimichanga). We selected the lemon-cherry flavor. It came with a huge scoop of ice cream. Ole! I am out of room for coffee cups, but this place absolutely must be acknowledged for it’s superior food and delightful surprises. Maybe I’ll start a virtual coffee cup collection.

Friday evening we went to a demonstration at the Sonoran Glass School. The artist made a glass dragon. It was quite amazing. If you are interested, you can find some pics on the website below this post.

Today rain chased us away from the planned living history exhibition at the presidio. Instead we spent some time at the local mall, followed by a very un-Mexican and un-historic frozen pizza for dinner.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

Our second visit to the Sonoran Glass School featured Jason Christian. He made a glass dragon, using local glass blowers to round out his team. It took two hours to make the dragon, but this is misleading. Earlier in the day, he had spent six hours making the head, scales, and other pieces he used in his demonstration. Here you see the glass used to make the body. The actual glass blowing was a very small part of the work. Danita and I finagled seats in the front row. The hot glass was pointed straight at me, which caused a moment’s discomfort. Throughout the process, I was amazed at how precise, careful, and quick the movements were. The smallest mis-step could destroy the work.

Here Jason rolled small cylinders of glass to add texture to the body.

Jason and the team are adding a small piece to the dragon, Torches are used to make. the glass where the piece will be placed quite hot so the piece will join the body. The rest of the body must be cooler so it retains its shape.

Jason is making adjustments to the body. Note that the smallest error by the helper (on the left) will break the glass and destroy the dragon.

The most difficult step is joining the head to the body.

This is the final adjustment and the best picture of the finished dragon. As soon as this was complete, the dragon was immediately rushed into an annealing oven. The dragon is slowly brought to room temperature over a 6 hour cooling period.

This is one of Jason’s dragons. It’s a little smaller. I found it on the internet for just $5,000. Jason’s 5-year-old son names the dragons. He thinks it’s cool that his dad makes dragons.

We had a week full of activity. One of my favorites is the Zoppe Family One-ring Circuits. Danita wisely purchased the expensive seats — folding chairs with backs — so we didn’t have to sit in the bleacher. Its under a real tent and it’s a lot of fun. It’s filled with amazing acts of balance and skill, and kids, and cotton candy, and more!

We re-visited the Presidio Museum. Last year we arrived in the middle of a school tour. They let us wonder around and hear what the reenactors had to say. This time we got an excellent tour by this docent. The dome is the bread furnace. They actually bake bread for the kids to eat.

Tucson has a glass blowing studio (natch). Anybody who wants to try their hand can attend classes. This week Kazuki Takizawa gave a short presentation and made a piece. Kazuki suffered from mental health issues. Making glass is a big help in overcoming his problem.

The sleeper this week was Dillinger Days. Dillinger was captured and arraigned here. Every year they have Dillinger Days. Last year we went in the evening and saw people dressed in period clothing, listened to Jazz, and watched them drink alcohol. This year we went to the morning reenactment of Dillon’s downfall. It was much better than I expected. It was a very well done 2-hour play. Dillinger’s gang was recognized when they evacuated hotel guests past a fire in the Hotel Congress. Here’s the fire truck that came to put out the fire. We also saw this truck in the “Rolling Thru Time” museum. It looked much more impressive sitting outside the Congress Hotel.

They also had a showing of period antique Ford vehicles. This snazzy car was at the hotel, but not in the antique Ford show because it wasn’t a model A.

The Model A club put on quite a show. Here is one of the 4 rows of vehicles on display.

I hope this finds everyone doing well.

Dani and Gayle joined us for a few days. We packed the days full of excitement. Here’s less than half of all we did. We started with the Fox Theater, where the Tucson Symphony played music to go with Charlie Chapman movies. The man was a genius. His movies are funny and kind. The theater was recently restored. Locals call the decor “Western Art Deco”. We did a food tour — 7 stops in 4 hours. All the food we had was very good. Some was extraordinary. “Old Tucson” is a tourist destination and it is also a working movie set. Think of “Little House on the Prairie” and countless cowboy movies. Only the tour was running. The actors were still practicing their shows. Watching the practice was a bonus. One doesn’t have to explicitly stop to see amazing scenery, but we did. Saguaro Park is incredible. As a topper, we experienced an unusual day of dramatic clouds. My favorite was the Gaslight Theater. Admission includes a large bag of popcorn. You don’t have to order food, but if you do, it will be perfectly good. From singing along to booing the bad guy, audience participation is encourage. The Gaslight is very popular with the locals.

Enjoy the pics on the website.

We decided to weather over in Tucson. We flew out on New Year’s day, returning the end of February. This was a downer for our construction company. The last payment is due when the punch-down items are complete. They damaged one of our blinds and had to order new. When they went to pick them up, the found the blind company was closed between Christmas and January 5. There was no way that anybody could get into the warehouse. With our house locked up, they will have to wait a couple of months for their last payment.

Getting to Tucson took all day. We took two flights which connected in Las Vegas. Both flights were delayed because clouds in Los Vegas were under 1,000 feet. They had to put more time between each takeoff and landing. By the time we got into our room, it was after 9 PM local time.

Our room is a lot like a casita. It has two bedrooms, two baths, and a living area / kitchen. It’s ideal for parents with two kids. The second bedroom has two twin beds. We have a bright light just outside the main bedroom’s window. I was so tired our first night that the light didn’t bother me a bit. On our first full day I covered the window with some aluminum foil.

On day one, our first task was getting the rental car, which went perfectly. The next task was food. We went to the local Walmart. We had so many items we needed two carts to to get it out to the car. We had one miss. I wanted to buy two 5 pound weights for my daily exercise. We put them in the bottom of the cart. Our check out clerk didn’t notice them. The guard checking folks as the leave didn’t notice them. We didn’t notice them. The two weights were left in the cart on the Walmart parking lot. Hopefully somebody returned them to the store.

Today I found out that the bike rental wasn’t anywhere near what I thought it would be. The other bike shops that rent bikes want $30 per day, which is almost as expensive as the rental car. With this being a university town, the ride share bikes look promising. I put my credit card on file.

Our first fun activity was “Rolling Thru Time”, a huge museum of old cars, fire engines, etc. The biggest part of their vehicles are Model T and Model A Fords. This museum focuses on returning the cars to drivability with the original drive train. Almost every vehicle in the museum could drive out of the door.

I hope this finds everyone doing well.

One word describes this week — Christmas! The main event was Christmas Eve dinner. Mark and family came on Christmas Eve Eve (the 23rd). They were flying back from a vacation in Mexico and stopped for a couple of days. Ryn drove down from NY and stayed overnight. Ed and Lynne drove down for dinner. I picked up Mom so she could join the dinner and festivities. Danita prepared some of her signature dishes. There was much more food than we could eat.

On Christmas morning Ryn and JaMMM had a gift opening, primarily for the kids. We had a great time doing family things and opening presents. A new family member joined the photo-bug club. Here is the very first picture Mira took with her brand new camera. (Maia was off doing something much more important.) Then it was time for everyone to go home.,

I hope all had a great Christmas.

There are a few small things to do, but we are basically done. We have full use of our kitchen. We’ve moved back into our bedroom. We can use toilets and sinks on all floors without restriction. The new shower is great. Woo Hoo! It’s all just in time for visits from Kathryn and Mark & family. There are some pics on the website.

The builder did an amazing job of protecting floors & furniture. They hung plastic to minimize the construction debris. hey did a wonderful job of cleaning up every day. But sanding walls creates a lot of dust. We have been through a cleaning cycle twice. We are declaring ourselves dust-free. Many pictures are rehung. The place looks and feels like home.

The backsplash for the kitchen sink was installed Friday. I would like to say how great it works, but they left it covered with protective plastic and to us to keep our hands to ourselves. The electrician will be here tomorrow. Next is the plumber. At that point, we should have a working bathroom and a working kitchen. We aren’t sure we will get everything done this year, but once we have plumbing, we’ll have what we want most.

We had double entertainment with Mom today. The first was music and lunch for all assisted living families. The music group did a nice job. The lunch was plenty of good food. After that, we went to a concert given by he Suspicious Cheese Lords. I wrote about this group last year. They are a group of 10 men singing a cappella. The concert is in the beautiful chapel. It’s old style architecture offer perfect acoustics for this kind of music. And if they want to use an organ for one or two pieces, there’s a nifty one on hand.

That’s it for us. Cross your fingers for a stove and a toilet. I hope this finds everyone doing well.

Danita did a brilliant job of cooking ahead so we could eat home-cooked dinners during construction. Her cooking plus a few restaurant dinners took us up to Friday, which was the original estimated completion date. Unfortunately, it looks like we will have two more weeks of construction, which is currently at a standstill. We are waiting for the kitchen backsplash to be fabricated and installed. The biggest excitement was the party to decorate the clubhouse. Danita normally goes to this annual event and I usually stay home. This year, I attended so I could share in the pizza and cookies available to those who decorated. I even found a job I could do to help out.

Our biggest excitement was the delivery of shelf liners. There were two boxes. One was delivered to us Friday afternoon. The second was delivered to our neighbor about 10 PM Friday. In the delivery instructions, we ask the delivery persons to ring our doorbell, so we know the package is on our doorstep. They did not ring our doorbell for the afternoon delivery, but they did ring our neighbor’s doorbell Friday evening. Our neighbor was startled.

My other project last week was to switch our clubhouse internet service from Comcast to Verizon. The switch was triggered when Verizon notified us that they no longer support land line telephone service. We now have all our phones lines provided as part of the FIOS internet service. As a bonus, we saved money on the new arrangement.

I hope this finds everyone doing well.