As I may have mentioned previously this trip was a bit different for us. Normally I will plan out things to the day and any variation is verbotten! This trip was vastly different for me and us. We would pretty much just plan out the next stop and not any further. So one of the things we were thinking about while at Kartchner Caverns was where next? We had heard from Rich Luhr about some southern Arizona things to do. But the weather was clearing up so should we head back north? Unfortunately we did not have unlimited time (not yet) so we could not do a north detour so it was stay south. So we decided on Green Valley.
We had to head north on AZ90, west on I10 (ugh, backtracking), south on AZ83 then take the cut off to Sahuarita. On the way there we were trying to find out where we were going to stay. Little did we know that Green Valley is a HUGE retirement area for Snowbirds. There weren’t may RV parks. One that was listed was actually in a mobile home park. There was one slight drawback, it was 55 and older park. We called and I explained that we were planning on staying only one night but we had not reached their minimum age yet, just 7 more years! They were willing to let us stay, so this was a double first for us, a mobile home park and a 55 and older park. We dropped the trailer and immediately took off to see what we came there for.
The Titan Missile Museum. This is the only remaining missile silo left over from the cold war, all the others were destroyed as part of arms agreements. It was impressive to see the level of technology (or lack of it) that protected our country during that time. It shows how paranoid the world was and also how thoroughly all the aspects of the defense were thought out. Things like when the replacement shift came in, they had 30 seconds to get from one point to another or the site would lock down. The fact that it required two people to fire the missile, each turning a key that were so far apart that you could not do it with one person. Certain areas required two people at all times to avoid sabotage. Wow! Everything was still looked like it did then, some things were even still functional. If you ever get near Green Valley, by all means take the tour!! I even bought some canned emergency ration water from the late ’50s. I have not, and probably will not open it. I am not sure how close to water it really is.
Our trip is winding down now since we unfortunately do have to get back home is some semblance of the future. So we will continue heading west (homeward) but we are still going to have to stop some more. Part VII coming next (sorry about the lack of photos in this post).
