Waking up Monday morning in the Coconino National Forest:

The nice thing was that we were very close to the entrance to Walnut Canyon National Monument.  We drove over and hiked down the trail:

The trail explores 13th century cliff dwellings:

More cliff dwellings across the way:

After Walnut Canyon, we headed into Flagstaff to visit Lowell Observatory.  The first thing we saw was the 1896 24-inch refractor Lowell used to map the features on Mars:

The 1930 reflector used to discover Pluto:

The reflector’s observatory:

Research observatories:

A reflector chassis:

After Lowell, we went to Sunset Crater National Monument, a volcano.  We hiked up adjacent Lenox Crater:

Trees growing in the ash field:

Sunset Crater, seen from Lenox Crater:

We went for a hike through the Bonito Lava Flow:

Next we went to Wupatki National Monument to see 11th century pueblo dwellings:

Ancient ga-ga court:

Heading north, we arrived at the Grand Canyon.  We stopped first at Desert View:

Enjoying Lipan Point:

We arrived at Mather Campground in the Park towards sunset.  This is the first official campground of the trip.

We drove about 140 miles today. Walnut Canyon NM (B), Lowell Observatory (C), Sunset Crater NM (D), Wupatki NM (E):

We left Phoenix early Sunday and headed North to Tonto Natural Bridge State Park, the largest travertine bridge in the world.  The “trail” goes along the bottom of the canyon:

At last we reached the natural bridge.  A spring dissolved the limestone canyon wall, and the dissolved limestone came out of solution to form a travertine dam across the canyon.  The creek at the bottom of the canyon then wore through the dam to form the natural bridge.  There’s some nice diagrams here.

The hole is 187 feet tall, so the travertine wall must be about 500 feet high:

Textures and contrast:

Trish and the kids are on the right side of the photograph:

Looking back the way we came.  The tunnel is 400 feet long. There was quite a bit of water seeping down through the ceiling:

A surface creek cascades over the edge:

There was a side trail to a nice little waterfall:

Saw this rice-grain-sized spider on the handrail.  He appears to have caught something:

Heading back up:

Continuing north, we crossed the Mogollon Rim and stopped at Meteor Crater.  It’s 3/4 of a mile across.  Click on the image for full resolution:

Tasty rock:

M looks around:

Storms on the horizon:

Heading west on I-40, we visited the ruins of Two Guns, Arizona.  There was a zoo and other attractions here until I-40 was laid down, at which time Route 66 was decertified.

Route 66 bridge:

Abandoned buildings:

Checking out the zoo enclosures:

The sky grew stormy, but as the sun approached the horizon it punched through, so the ground was brighter than the sky:

The zoo entrance back in the day:

…And now:

Leaving at sunset, we continued West to dispersed camping in the Coconino National Forest, just outside Walnut Canyon National Monument.

We drove 244 miles today.  Tonto Natural Bridge SP (B), Meteor Crater (C), Two Guns (D):

Friday morning we headed North to the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum.  We got to see a screech owl:

B mimics the gila monster’s tongue:

The kids coming out of their non-shell:

We saw javelinas and coyotes too.  It was a great museum!

Next we went to the Western unit of Saguaro National Park:

Next we visited Biosphere 2.  Imagine their surprise when it turned out replicating the planet in a glass box was more complicated than they thought.

Having said that, it was an interesting tour.  Looking up!

We toured the various biomes.  Here’s the “ocean”:

The rainforest is well on its way to taking over the dome:

There’s a desert biome too:

There’s quite a bit of equipment down below keeping everything up above running smoothly:

Since it’s a closed system, the air pressure changes as the temperature changes.  To avoid popping the facility, the “lung” has a flexible membrane that raises and lowers the center disc, changing the effective volume of the facility:

After the tour, we headed to Phoenix for Shabbos.  It was in the low 110s, and fairly humid due to the monsoon thunderstroms.  We had meals with wonderful families, and the community was great!

We left the casino and headed down the street to the Titan Missile Museum:

Looks fairly non-descript from the surface:

We went down in for a tour.  Entry is through a non-hardened underground stairwell, which leads to the blast door into the hardened launch control bunker.  Behold the thick steel door:

Everything was spring mounted (the cylinder on the wall), and the cables have slack so when a nuclear strike occurs, the equipment bounces up and down and stays working.

The launch room:

We went through a launch sequence, complete with lights and sirens.  After the launch, the docent said that the launch crew would wait for further instructions, but there probably wouldn’t be any, as the Air Force base would have been a Soviet target.  The crew could either suffocate once the air ran out in the bunker, or they could go up the ventilation tube and be exposed to fatal radiation.  It was sobering.

We walked down the accessway to the missile.  The entire passage is suspended on springs.

The missile, waiting for a war that never came:

After the tour, we toured the museum upstairs which contained a mock-up of the warhead:

Here’s a painting of the complex, showing, left to right, the ventilation shaft, the command bunker, the stairwell, and the missile silo:

Next, we went to Asarco Copper Mine Museum, which is on the grounds of the Asarco Mission Mine.  It was interesting, if a bit propaganda-ish:

Leaving the Museum, we headed Southwest of Tucson to visit Kitt Peak National Observatory.  It was 3000 foot climb to the top of the mountain.  The SUV transmission got a bit warm towing the RV up there, but it was OK.

Kitt Peak is one of the largest collections of optical telescopes in the world:

The Mayall 4-meter reflector (right), next to the Bok:

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We took a tour to the Mayall.  We walked by the Bok:

Sun over the Mayall:

We got to see the Mayall on the inside.  Its mirror is 158 inches in diameter and weighs 15 tons.  The instrument is 92 feet tall:

Looking down from the Mayall:

Next we visited the McMath-Pierce Solar Telescope.  Pretty neat:

After a long, slow drive down the mountain, we came back down to Tuscon and hit the bowling alley:

That night, we stayed on BLM land outside Tucson:

We drove about 140 miles today.  Titan Missile Museum (B), Asarco Museum (C), Kitt Peak (D):

We got started pretty early to get to a tour on time later in the day.  But I was enjoying City of Rocks too much not to capture more photographs:

Panorama from the campsite.  Click for the full-size image:

Looking back as we left:

We made it to Kartchner Caverns State Park in time for our tour.  The cave was discovered in the 70s, and a good bit of effort has gone into not disturbing the hydrology of the cave so its formations continue to grow.  There’s a misting system that hosed us down as we entered the cave, to keep lint and other particles on us from floating off and sticking to the formations.  The walkway is a concrete trough that is hosed out every night.  It was pretty expensive, I thought, and perhaps not sufficiently different from Carlsbad to be worth it.  No cameras (or anything else for that matter) are allowed in the cave, so this is the best I could do:

Next, we continued West towards Tuscon, where we stopped at the Pima Air and Space Museum.  We first did a bus tour of the “Boneyard”, a storage facility for 4,400 planes.  M and I enjoyed the tour, and B and Trish got in a nice nap:

After that, we toured the museum itself.  It has a number of hangers, as well as 300 or so planes on display outside.  It was over 100 degrees out, so we didn’t spend much time walking the tarmac.

After leaving the museum, we visited the Eastern unit of Saguaro National Park.  There was an odd storm coming in, so visibility was pretty poor, and there was a good bit of lightning in the distance.

We left Saguaro and headed a bit south to Sahuarita.  The Walmart there doesn’t allow overnight parking, so we overnighted at the Desert Diamond Casino.

We drove 307 miles today.  Karchner Caverns (B), Pima Museum (C), Saguaro National Park (D):