Bob and I had our first minor “crisis” of our house sit tour last week when the AC decided it had had enough of the super hot conditions and decided to retire prematurely. It apparently wasn’t alone, as it took a few calls to find someone that could come out the next day to see what the issue was. It took the better part of the day to get the issue resolved, but all is well and we’re as “cool” as ever — no worries there.
In other news, we have been watching the AZ Wildcats advance in Omaha, and have confirmed house sit commitments through the beginning of November. Following our time here, we will fly to Portugal in early September for a 3 week house sit in Olhao, Portugal (southern part of country — near Faro), then we will head to France for a 2 week house sit in Souillac (near Toulouse) and then to Belgium for a 10 day sit in Boitsfort (suburb of Brussels). Woo Hoo!
Also, we have been seeing some more of the southern Arizona area. . .
We did another urban adventure in Tucson, this time we took the short ride on their street car (for $4 you can ride it all day, but it basically goes from the mercado area just west of the city center, through the 4th street district downtown, and the university) as well as walked. We found some more big head photo ops for Bob, got a personal tour of the postal museum, and then drove up Sentinel Peak (“A” Mountain) to get a great view of the town as well as the UofA “A” that gets painted white each year by the students.
We suffered through one of the worst tours ever to get to the Whipple Observatory atop one of the mountains outside of Green Valley. The tour started at 9 am with a couple of films and ended a little before 3 after mostly a slow slog up (and then back down) the mountain by bus. The road was narrow, windy, and sometimes paved and sometimes not. We stopped at a couple of different types of telescopes which I still don’t know too much about. We had a picnic lunch (which we each brought) at our 2nd stop before we were hauled in smaller groups by SUV to the top telescope. The views at the top were great as well as the views on the way up and down (if you could deal with looking out). Note to tour guides: formally introduce yourself, the name and importance of the facility being toured, and what will happen during the tour. Have fun facts to highlight on bus ride and try to talk to the whole tour group when off of the bus. (Maybe I’ve found my next career?)
Our find of the stay so far though has to be the cute town of Bisbee. It is about a 2 hour drive southeast of here. It is located about a mile up in the Mule Mountains, but you drive down into it and their are steps all over town to help you get from one level to the other. It definitely has an Austiny ” keep it weird” vibe. We plan to go back.
Peckish Travels 