3/19/13: Ellen and I went to see Biosphere 2, which was used in 1991 - 1993. The scientists were locked in there for two years, growing all of their own food and studying the environment. Now it's run by the University of Arizona, and is a research facility. Seems to me it's a bunch of tree huggers - our guide kept talking about climate change and how we're going to have such severe droughts, storms, etc. It was interesting.
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| The Rain Forest |
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| Biosphere 2 |
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| The Ocean |
After the Biosphere tour, Ellen and I stopped for lunch and at an "Antique" store in Oracle, Arizona:
3/15/13: Today we had a great off road Jeep ride with Joe and Ellen. They had been wanting to go through Box Canyon, which is just outside of Florence. It was beautiful scenery, exciting moments, and a lot of fun. We got stuck at one point with the underneath of the Jeep resting on a rock, and Mike and Joe couldn't get any of the wheels to catch. Luckily a big group of ATVers came by, and they helped lift the Jeep off so that Joe could back it up. Whew!
Then, we kept going until we got to "The Wall". There was no way us novices were going to try to go over that, so some folks there told us a way around. (Too bad we didn't get a picture of it) There were a million roads and we didn't have a detailed map, so luckily Ellen had her GPS which guided us to the main road that got us to State Route 60, or we could have been lost for days. Moral of the story - don't go without a detailed ToPo map! We had lots of fun.
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| Mike directing Joe over the rocks |
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| In the Box Canyon |
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| Our picnic spot - Cheers! |
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| Joe and Mike at the map at the entrance of the canyon |
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| An old house, way station? Who knows. |
3/10/13: We got to Coolidge, Arizona on February 23rd. We're staying at the Indian Skies RV Resort. We chose Coolidge over Casa Grande because it's closer to Joe and Ellen's house in Sun City in Florence. Mike and Joe have been golfing quite a bit, and Mike has been doing handyman work at their house.
The weather has been beautiful - sunny and warm. Friday was rainy and cold, but now we're on an upswing.
Last Sunday we went on a 260 mile ride with friends Lee and Deb Ralston and some friends of theirs from their RV park. We rode up to Mt. Lemmon just outside of Tucson. We rode up to the ski area, above 8,000 feet. It was beautiful - there was snow on the sides of the road and it was cold up there. A really pretty ride. I was exhausted at the end of the day; it's been a while since we've ridden that far.
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| View from halfway up to the top |
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| Rest stop! All Gold Wings, except for the Spyder. |
