November is known mostly for Veterans Day and of course Thanksgiving Day. Here in Arizona people love this time of year, with the highs being 70s and the lows being 40s. “It’s an invigorating month of sparkling days and cool nights.”

November 1st, The dog park is open! It was closed prior because they were watering the grass. And there’s Cooper. . . .

The golf course has been watered, so it’s time to bring out the golf clubs.

I went bird watching with my friend Marcia, who gives bird watching tours at different locations. We went to Madera Canyon. I went there last year but wanted to go again cause it’s a fun place to watch the birds coming and going plus listening to the birders yell out the names of the birds, while I just watch.

Madera Canyon in Green Valley AZ, Is a well known spot for bird watching, It’s the resting place for migrating birds. The canyon area has an extensive trail system for hikers and it’s 5,000 feet above sea so that makes it a great place to go when it’s hot and your looking for some cooler weather, actually it’s a great place to go anytime. 

The last two pictures are of humming birds, and a fairly decent picture of a bird I took. I don’t know what the names of the birds are, but I knew when I was taking the picture.

In November our minds head to turkeys so let’s go.. Arizona is home to three subspecies of wild turkeys: Merriam’s, Gould’s, and Rio Grandes. The turkeys are found primarily in the ponderosa pine forests of Colorado, New Mexico, and northern Arizona. We got here just in time to see about 30 of these turkeys file into the bird watching area. The one on the bottom pictures flew up on top of the bird feeder and tried to eat the bird’s food. It was fun to watch it as it mainly just tried to keep it’s balance from falling off the top of the sloped roof. Wild turkeys have been known to fly up to 55 mph in short bursts. For domesticated turkeys, this is unfortunately not the case. They’re bred to be heavier in weight, almost twice as much as a wild turkey.

I also found out by Marcia, that when a bird watcher is so happy they spot a bird they’ve never seen, are now called a Lifer – a Birder that has seen and identified a bird in the wild for the first time. Someone decided that after you see the bird for the first time you get to have a piece of pie. Other birders after seeing a bird for the first time do some kind of a dance. In the Birding world you should do one or even both.

What made my day and a lot of other people was seeing a Coati !! Your probably thinking it’s a bird of some sorts, that’s what I thought until I saw it. Actually a Coati, also known as Coatimundis are mammals originally from Tupi, that now live in South America, Central America, Mexico, and the southwestern United States. Coatis enjoy wide-ranging habitat types including tropical lowlands, dry high-altitude forest, oak forest, mesquite grassland, and forest edges. they love eating fruit and insects.

I t was really exciting to see my first Coati up close. I think they are so cute.

3-2-1-0 – LAUNCH Titan Missile Museum

On the 17th of this month we went a little south and visited the Titam II missle launch facility and museum. It was kind of an eye opener and a great history lesson. I mean at the time these were active and I was just a kid. In school we would always have drills to duck and cover under our desks. YA right as if that would have saved us. The government has us hoodwinked for sure. Anyway, this site is the last remaining fully intact Titan II missle launch complex, there were 54 of them built between 1959 and 1963, when they all became active. Surrounding the air base here in Tucson there were 18 seperate missle launch complex’s, the other 36 were located in two other states. All 54 were active between 1963 and 1983., then 53 were demolished and decommioned, and this one saved for history as a living museum. This was all part of an agreement between President Regan and the Russians, to reduce the amount of nuclear weapons each of us had. The Russians also saved one of three bases for a museum, not sure where it is though.

The museum offers a one hour tour down into the complex, yes it is all underground about 50 feet or so. Before I talk about the tour a little about why these were built. Before the Titan II, the Titan I was our go to rocket in case of a necular attack on us. However, the Titan I could not be readied for launch before enemy missles would hit us. They were more of a offensive weapon, not a deterent as the Titan II was. The Titan I was housed in a underground silo, but when it was readied for launch it had to be eleveted out of the silo, then fueled, then launched. This took well over 30 miutes and by that time enemy missles would have already hit us. With the Titan II that all changed, it could be launched in under a minute, Why, because of the two types of liquid fuel it used. These fuels meant the rocket could always be fully loaded with fuel and ready to go in there underground silo’s. Also upon misture of the two fuels, it self ignited, so no need for an ignition source, which could fail, and did at times with the Titan I. Below the rocket they also developed ways to get rid of the blast flame and gases. So just like that an enemy had to think twice about attaching us as we could strike back within 5 minutes. This was what was called now in history as MAD or mutual assured destruction era. No one would win. OK, now let’s go for a tour.

Actually this incredible amenity was built as a Deterrent. Something that makes someone decide not to do something

Below is a picture of the underground missle complex.

Below is a couple pitures of construction

Our tour started at the main gate, this is where the four man crews would arrive every morning at seven a.m.. First thing you notice is that there is no security around the base but a chain link fence, no MP police nothing, that was by design. The four man crew consisted of a Crew Commander, A deputy commander, and two technitions. Upon arrival at seven a. m. the commander would call down to the crew inside, give his secret password, and the gate would be electronically opend, After the gate was closed the crew had 3 minutes to get to the portal stairway and call down to the control center. Anything over that time they would not be allowed in and the security police would be called. The m. p. police patrolled three bases each never more that 20 minutes away from one. Once they reached the portal entry, which looks like a strom shelter door, the commander would go down a flight of stairs and call into the complex. He again would give the password, if correct the door and gate would be unlocked.

The crew would enter and the doors closed and locked behind them. From here you decended down a stairway about six flights to the bottom, here you are greeted with another gated door, again the commander would call in and give the correct password for entry. Now you are about 40 feet deep in the ground and at the end of the portal entry way, which was not built to survive a blast. One last call from the commander with correct pass word, would now unlock the door and 4 rams would retract pins on each side. Now a crewman likely the youngest and strongest would pull open the door. Below, me making the call and the blast door open

Once inside, the door would be shut and locked, now directly in front of them is another blast door, they are in the air lock area now. Here they are on video camera from the inside crew. Each of the new four man crew would give his name, rank and serial number, also they could now be seen so if someone had them at gunpoint they would be noticed. After all is correctly done, this second blast door opens , the crew enters and the door is shut and locked behind them. Now you are in the blockhouse area, about 30 feet by 30 feet. This has 4 foot thick walls, floor and 5 foot thick roof all made of reinforced cocrete and steel. The blast doors which there are seven in total are made of solid steel pieces welded together with steel rebar within. Each door weighs 6000 pounds. To the left and right are blast doors, they are now open but in the day they both would have been closed, the right one is access to the 229 foot raceway to the missle silo and the left one you enter the control complex, which is where the crew would go.. Once the crew was inside the blockhouse, the control complex blast door would open and the new crew on alert duty would come in and greet the crew on duty who were preparing to leave. We entered the control complex first, this is domed shaped and about 60 feet in the ground. The walls are 4 feet thick at the bottom and go to 10 feet thick pretty close to the surface, all reinfroced cocrete with massive amounts of rebar inside. The control area itself is three stories high ,and independantly suspended inside the dome itself by eight giant springs and shocks. The pictures below are of the control center which is on the second level and where the crew enters. The first level is the kitchen area and sleeping area all very small. Each crew member had 4 hours of off duty on a 24 hour alert. The third level contained all the equipment to power the complex, batteries ,generators ,radio systems and the like.

I never heard of or saw a Coati so I was excited, and I think that they look so cute. It was a fun to go along birding with all “Twitchers.”

So now are crew is safely locked into the missle complex, pictue above shows typical crew. For the next 24 hours they would be on alert ,receive secret messages ,decode them and hope they never had to launch. A lot of stree was created with this job, never knowing if this could be the end ,and in that time it was real possiballity.

For us though, we now exited the control complex and headed to the missle silo through a 229 foot cableway, which is also suspened from the 4 foot thick concrete wall which surrounds it. The silo is 55 feet round and about150 feet deep. The walls are 4 foot thick at the bottom and increase to 10 feet thick at the top. The Missle silo door is made of steel and reinforced concrete and weights 760 tons, operated by a hydraulic ram, which the door glides on railroad tracks to open and close. Now the door is open halfway and is permanent with the other half open with glass enclosed roof to peer down into the missle silo. When we got to the end of the cableway another blast door greeted us, we went in and walked around the missle by gangway. there are seven levels to the silo, each one has it’s own purpose, but we were only allowed on the one level. The missle itself is surrounded by another steel wall which goes top to bottom, this is about 20 feet round. Another blast door puts you into this area, which we could not access. At the time only the blast door was the way to see the rocket, now they have big windows of glass where you can peer into to see the missle.

Above, walking down the cableway

Entering the silo blast door, with the missle blast door ahead.

The missle in it’s bay

missle door

Peering into the abyss of destruction

The Missle. The missle is 10 feet round and 103 feet high, and at the time the most powerfull rocket of it’s time. The titan II went on to power the Gemina and some mercury speacecraft into orbit. Two rocket motors take it from liftoff to about 50 miles up, then cut off and are jetisioned and one rocket motor ignites and takes it to 200 miles up and a speed of 16,ooo miles per hour all in a litlle more than 5 minutes. then that is jetisioned and only the nose cone with the warhead travels on to its target 6000 miles away.

The Warhead. The warhead was housed in the nosecone, which upon entry into the atmosphere would slowly shed it’s metal to dispurse heat. upon reentry the warhead was about all that was left speeding to it’s target. It was nine megatons in size. How big is that about 25 times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. About nine million tons of TNT and would require 90,000 boxcars. The train would be 1,534 miles long and would stretch from Tucson To Lexington KY. The blast would destroy about 30 miles by 30 miles or 900 square miles of the earth. This is just one Titan II missle with a warhead.

Nosecone and warhead.

That ended our tour, none were ever launched. If they had, the crew could launch the missle in 58 seconds, after that there work was done. They would have known full well the meaning and could onl;y hope they would survive, or would you want too. If a warhead exploded more than a mile away they would survive anything closer they woul not make it, so all they could do was to have waited. thankfuly it never came to that.

How about a dance, A Share the Bounty Dance.

All you had to do was bring nonperishable food items to the ballroom to see the band and go dancin..

A lot of fun dancing with our friends Diane and Ken

Moby’s Restaurant has a beach themed decor here in the desert. It is located in Casino Del Sol. It was a nice place to eat and the food was good. Plus we beat the crowds getting there about 2:00.

I know it’s still November, but we wanted to check out this one-lady show and get in the Christmas spirit a bit early. We were glad we did as Alisa did a great job performing and making all the characters in “A Christmas Carol” come alive.

It was a good time and she even left everyone with a copy for making Smoking Bishop. In a Christmas Carol Scrooge undergoes a transformation. He becomes a more generous and compassionate man, and he begins to enjoy the simple pleasures of life. As a result, he no longer drinks gruel (an awful tasting drink) and he instead prefers to enjoy more flavourful and festive beverages, such as Smoking Bishop, a type of mulled wine. So if your serving fifteen guests or more and want to make a different drink, why not try this?

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It’s November 29th and it’s a great morning with temperature of 68, why not take a walk thru the desert?

It was nice to see new growth on the cacti.