Tuesday, August 1, 2000
Best Day Yet. I hope I get to say that a few more times. The day started off well enough with our jaunt into the next state, Arizona. We planned that this day would not hold a lot of activity but we were pleasantly surprised.
Andy had heard about an old western movie set called Old Tucson, out on Speedway Blvd outside the city. We followed the road through the hot desert by these beautiful dry fields of cacti and arrived at the tourist trap ready to enjoy gunfights and cool old west stuff. When we found out that the price to enjoy the over 100 degree weather (with the only gunfight of the day over with) was $14 bucks a shot, we decided to move on to the more likely air conditioned International Wildlife Museum. Vienna was much more pleased with this decision as well. She much prefers animals to Old West towns (and A/C to no A/C) anytime. This turned out to be a great choice. We learned all about desert myths from the video and enjoyed seeing many specimens of wildlife from throughout the world. And there was a great gift shop, which is always high on our list.
From here, we cruised into town to the Kon Tiki Restaurant. Andy loves Tiki restaurants and was thrilled to find that this one lived up to the write up he had read about it. Tiki gods lined the walls, there was great Polynesian cuisine and we were sat by the large Terrarium with brightly colored parrots that entertained us. We were very pleased with the whole experience.
Then it was off to our final destination for the night, The Shady Dell Trailer camp in Bisbee. About 2 hours south east of Tucson, it is well worth going out of the way for. The Shady Dell offers late '40s and early '50s airstreamed trailers to stay in overnight. We chose the Royal Mansion since "If we are going to do it- we may as well do it right". This one was the largest they offer and is decorated to the "T" with mostly authentic '50's furnishings, linens, TV, and phonograph. It even had a booth in the "dining area" which, you know we loved, and a lady remington, complete with flowered metal case, in the bathroom. The details were near perfect and we enjoyed the cheesy movie "It Came From Outer Space" on the old Black and White. The details in this trailer were amazing. Even Vienna was impressed with how cool it was. We highly recommend this stop for anyone traveling in South Arizona. (See Motel Americana for more on the Shady Dell).
After passing through Phoenix with not much more than a look over the edge of the freeway, we decided we wanted to spend some time in the Tucson area. Our first thrill was seeing the Suguaro Cacti. Vienna and I had never seen them before and they were sure neat. Especially seeing fields full of them along with many other varieties of cacti and desert flora. We were determined to get a family portrait with one.
