Our day started with the B&B owner's delicious breakfast spread in the dining room. He had the counter full of cereals and yogurts and made fresh scrambled eggs with ham. On the table he had fresh papaya and cantaloupe. As we ate, a bright green hummingbird visited the feeder just outside the picture window. Three other hotel guests soon joined us at the table. A lady from Arizona was with her husband (not at breakfast) celebrating their 48th wedding anniversary. They tried to visit the Titan Missile Museum yesterday but there are 55 steps down into the silo and back up, and he could not do them. We chatted about sights around Arizona and their driving trip to Alaska. A friendly couple from Montreal also joined. They were on a more relaxed travel schedule and were considering the Grand Canyon next. They had not heard of Waterton Lakes in Alberta, the Canadian sister park to Glacier in the U.S., so we encouraged them to visit there.
Our tour began at 10am at the Titan Missile Museum that was 50 minutes south of our location in East Tucson. Each tour slot accepts 26 people and can only be reserved online in advance, which we did a few weeks before our trip departure. We arrived a few minutes before the museum opened at 9:45am.
The tour began with a quick 5-minute movie on the history of the Cold War and a safety briefing that mentioned watching out for rattlesnakes that like to hide in doorways. We walked over to the silo entrance hatch. The men who worked in the silo were on a 4-man (two enlisted, two officers) 24-hour shift called an alert tour. Upon entering the silo for the shift change, a series of four phone calls occurred to ensure nobody snuck in.
Down the stairs we went and were greeted with the 3-ton door that can withstand anything when closed. It's welded open permanently now. Rob tried to move it anyway.
We were guided into the control room and had a simulated mission. Two volunteers served as the commander and the deputy commander. We learned about the codebook and the red file cabinet. The target was Target 2, which was never revealed where that is. Even the crew did not know so as to avoid any personal conflict about the location they were about to destroy. Michele said she's pretty confident she knows the location of Target 2. What's cool about the control center module (which consists of three levels) is that it's all on huge coil springs to diffuse the shock of a mission launch.
After the mock mission, we walked from the control center to the missile silo via the cableway. We were amazed at the complexity of the building. The entire steel tunnel cable way is suspended from above.
Looking up to the top of the silo, we saw the 760-ton silo door was half opened. It only took 20 seconds for the door to open for launch. As part of the SALT treaty, decommissioned facilities that remained intact would have their silo doors opened half-way so that the other country could confirm via satellite imagery that the facility was inoperable.
Then we climbed back up the five flights of stairs and looked at the outside exhibits. Most of the facility items above ground were related to the fueling of the Titan II. The Titan II used hypergolic fuels as opposed to liquid cryogenic fuels. Hypergolic fuels allow the rocket to stay fully fueled making them very quick to launch (under one minute) unlike liquid cryogenic fuels that need to be stored in special containers and only placed into the rocket's tanks when it is ready to launch. This could take 15 minutes to fuel. Hypergolic fuels also do not require any outside ignition source. Simply introducing the two propellant components (a fuel and an oxidizer) and they ignite instantly. The downside of this kind of fuel (which is still used in certain parts of space vehicles today) is that it is extremely toxic.
We finished up around 11:30 and wanted to catch lunch in town before celebrating a romantic Valentine's Day by doing laundry. Michele found Urban Pita and ordered the chicken shawarma plate with falafel. The hummus was especially delicious.
At Wave Max laundry we appreciated the very clean facilities. The lady working there was constantly sweeping the floors and even wiping out each washing machine after use. We've never seen that at any laundromat. It only took us about 90 minutes including folding.
Finishing laundry at 1:30pm, we drove to Saguaro National Park East district which is closest to our hotel. The park is separated into West and East sections an hour apart with the city of Tucson in between. They each have a visitor's center. In the Rincon Mountain District Visitor Center we watched a 20-minute movie about the park and looked at a few exhibits.
This is what the inside of a saguaro cactus looks like. Since they don't have rings like a tree, it is a mystery to determine how old they are.
Back in the car we took the Cactus Forest Loop Drive that was only 8 miles, but had pull-offs every 1/4 mile or so. We stopped at nearly all of them since the scenery was so amazing.
We walked part of the Desert Ecology trail and the Cactus Forest trail. This is a closeup of the Fish Hook Barrel Cactus. It gets its name from the shape of its needles. They may look soft but they are very hard and could easily be used as a fish hook!
We saw this Valentine's couple cacti. They are inseparable.
We stayed until we ran out of light.
As it was dinnertime, we tried to eat at a nearby Mexican restaurant, but they were so busy inside that we left and went to Chipotle for carryout instead.
Back at our room, we enjoyed our dinner and edited the many pictures we took today. We even heard a few instances of very short down pours of rain on the roof. Certainly the desert plant life and wildlife will benefit from it as this winter has been especially dry for the region.
Tomorrow we may either drive up to Mt. Lemmon or visit western portion of the Saguaro National Park.
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