AZ-NM: Tucson, Arizona

Wednesday, November 12, 2014

Tucson: Biosphere 2

Um. You guys. Tucson, Arizona is awesome.

After hiking around Sedona we drove south for awhile to check into the Arizona Inn in Tucson. We relied on Yelp heavily to find tasty pizza, Mexican, and Greek food while spending our days ambling around different sights. First on the list was Biosphere 2. From 1991 to 1993 it served as an entirely self enclosed ecosystem, supporting 8 scientists in an expensive experiment to show that humans will have difficulty cultivating enough calories to survive on other planets. Nowadays the University of Arizona uses the infrastructure to research landscape evolution, water, and climate topics. It's sort of like a greenhouse, but with living quarters and enough space to grow food that should support life. It was pretty cool.

Tucson: Biosphere 2
Tucson: Biosphere 2
Tucson: Biosphere 2
Tucson: Biosphere 2

The next day we drove up through the Coronado National Forest. Beautiful valleys of saguaro cacti, and as we gained elevation the plant life changed entirely.

Tucson: Coronado National Forest
Tucson: Ocatillo Tucson: Saguaro
Tucson: Coronado National Forest
Tucson: Saguaro

To top off our three days in Tucson, we went to the Pima Air & Space Museum but rather than go through the museum, we took the AMARG Boneyard Tour. Basically, we sat in a giant bus and drove around looking at decrepit planes for awhile. The US Military stores airplanes and planes-for-parts on this giant tract of land in Arizona.

Tucson: AMARG Airplane Boneyard Tour
Tucson: Pima Air & Space Museum
Tucson: AMARG Airplane Boneyard Tour
Tucson: AMARG Airplane Boneyard Tour
Tucson: AMARG Airplane Boneyard Tour

Somewhere in there, we spent a day lounging around our hotel. For such a lovely place, it was reasonably priced, had free ice cream every evening, and the maids pre-filled the ice buckets. It felt pretty fancy, and its restaurant seemed absurdly popular with the old white lady demographic.

Tucson: The Arizona Inn
Tucson: The Arizona Inn Tucson: The Arizona Inn

AZ/NM Vacation
Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing 2014
Sedona, Arizona, 1 day
Tucson, Arizona, 3 days
White Sands, New Mexico, 1 day
Carlsbad Caverns, New Mexico, 1 day
Roswell & Albuquerque, New Mexico, 1 day each

2 comments:

rooth said...

You had me at free ice cream. And that airplane graveyard is haunting

missris said...

Your pictures are incredible. Also? "an expensive experiment to show that humans will have difficulty cultivating enough calories to survive on other planets" is kind of hilarious/sad.