Cowboys and engines!

We were driving from Yuma towards Tucson when we got stopped by a US Border Patrol officer. We are very near the Mexican border down here so we have seen hundreds of these patrols up and down the highway. Once this one had ascertained that we were neither Mexican nor illegal he seemed to lighten up a little and fancied a chat. He was perplexed as to why we were in this part of the country and not at the Grand Canyon or Las Vegas. "There ain't much to see down here," he quipped. Oh, but there is...

We got to Tucson and found ourselves a nice little spot in a proper trailer park where people actually live full-time. We met a guy there called John who had one arm, three teeth, a yellow beard and a poodle. He was very friendly and gave us lots of tips for things to do in the area, as well as sharing the very comprehensive list of nicknames he has for his dog. We didn't do everything on John's list (mainly because we couldn't understand all that he was saying) but we did visit the Titan Missile Base down the road. It was Valentine's Day after all! This is one of 54 sites across America where they had huge missiles, in underground bunkers, all pointing at what was the USSR. Since the end of the Cold War they have all been destroyed and filled in except this one which has been preserved as a museum. It is very scary. You are led down some stairs, past huge two-foot-thick concrete doors and into the underground control room. It must have been manned by hobbits because I spent a lot of the visit stooped over at about 45 degrees. It was built in the '60s and has been left pretty much as it was when it was shut down in the '80s, so all the "technology" looks pretty dated. It's frightening to think that these clunky knobs and dials could destroy huge swathes of Russia. They simulate a launch scenario for you, turning a couple of keys (yes, really) that set off lots of buzzers and flashing lights, then silence where a huge missile would have been sent hurtling towards the Commies. The whole thing takes just seconds. Like I said, scary. They still have a (now disarmed) missile sat in the "blast chamber" and it's quite a chilling sight.

The main reason I wanted to be in Tucson was to see the "Airplane Boneyard" (or "Aeroplane Graveyard" as we'd call it) at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base. This is where they keep thousands of old warplanes that have either been retired or mothballed for future use. We found the Air Force Base quite easily and pootled up to the gate in our van to be greeted by two armed guards wanting to see our passes. Of course, not being military personnel, we didn't have passes and this probably wasn't the entrance we were supposed to use. They were very good about it though and sent us round to the Pima Air & Space Museum where we could get a bus tour round the boneyard. The next few hours were fascinating and brilliant for me – and one long living hell for Claire. The museum was chock full of amazing aircraft including the little plane James Bond flies at the beginning of Octopussy and the "Air Force One" used by JFK when he was president. The bus tour around the boneyard was great too. Again, not so much for Claire. There are rows and rows of planes and helicopters either waiting to be scrapped or to be resurrected and serve America once more. It is just mind-boggling to see so many planes all lined up in neat rows, from huge B52 bombers to Top Gun style jet fighters. There are over 4,200 of them though, and even I had to concede that that was probably too many.

I was worried that Claire had had a dull time looking at all those planes so when I saw a big fire engine screaming towards us in my wing mirror, lights flashing, horn blaring, I thought I'd tell her – you know, add a bit of excitement to her day. Then the wing mirror sort of disappeared and was replaced by a blur of big red truck and the sound of smashing glass. They'd hit us! It was a bit of a shock at first but we saw the the fire truck come to a stop round the corner so Claire ran off to catch up with them while I retrieved what I could of the mirror from the road and then drove to meet them. By the time I got there, the whole crew of Ladder 09 were out of the truck and chatting to Claire quite happily. When we asked if there wasn't something burning they had to attend to urgently they said not to worry, that they'd radioed for another crew to attend and they now had to deal with this incident instead! So the driver, Officer Mike Wintrode, started filling out lots of paperwork, while I rang our hire company and Claire chatted to the rest of the crew. They'd also called out the Fire Chief who would have to come and investigate and he duly arrived to take photographs and fill out his report. He then joined in with the stick that Mike was by now getting about his driving skills. Then a policewoman turned up wanting to know what was going on, so then she had to take pictures and fill out another report. By this time we were all posing for various photos, Claire was having a go in the truck and Mike had given us one of their hats as a souvenir. A really nice bunch of guys. By lunchtime the next day we'd had our mirror fixed and Mike had "friended" us on Facebook!

The next day we headed to Tombstone, scene of the legendary Gunfight At The OK Corral. We thought there might be a bit of a touristy thing going on there but nothing prepared us for what we found. It's like stepping onto a movie set. Horse-drawn stagecoaches trundle along the streets which are lined with proper old Wild West buildings – saloons, gunshops, barbers etc. Cowboys walk the wooden sidewalks under the shop verandas and every now and then you hear a cry of "yee-har!" There are a lot of people paid to be dressed up as cowboys and saloon wenches of course, but there were also a worryingly high percentage of 'ordinary people' who'd turned up wearing all the gear. There is a lot of souvenir tat on offer, naturally, and it is nearly all themed around Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday and the infamous gunfight. We foolishly bought tickets to a re-enactment of the event and had to sit through 40 minutes of hammy, school-play-quality acting before the 30 second anticlimax of a gunfight at the end. It was awful. Claire even said she'd rather have been looking at aeroplanes again.

BURGER OF THE WEEK
A sort of burger/sandwich hybrid this time, but still very beefy, it was called The Schmitter and was from a bar in Tucson named O'Malleys or something like that. Sliced rib eye steak, topped with salami, melted Provolone cheese, grilled onions and 1,000 island dressing on a potato bun. Excuse the picture but I was a little tipsy at the time...