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Photos ~ Frost Park Chalk Off #20
Sun. July 4, 1999
The 4th under A Mountain
Our drive west lead us eventually out of New Mexico and into the state with many cacti, Arizona. After a near-border rest stop we jetted toward a rendevou with a man slated to attach an adapter to our spectrascope. Admist on-the-road tensions (we all got a little punchy, loopy, hungry, and worried) we finally pulled off the highway into Vail, AZ. Ron Hilliard is the man from whom VSU and other university's astronomy departments buy their spectrascopes. Since VSU's astronomy department (Dr. Leake and co.) has purchased two of said spectrascopes from Mr. Hilliard, they again summoned him to create a special adapter that would allow a tight connection between their new CCD camera and his company's creation. We pulled to the side of the road just near the freeway offramp and broke out the expensive equipment on the back of Mr. Hilliard's pickup truck. Like a perverted kind of drug dealing scene, a delicate surgery was performed to merge the two instruments. When the job was completed, we placed the newly joined pair inside the Buick and away from the blazing weather. Our destination: Tucson, AZ.
A mere matter of a half-an-hour or so was all it took for the group of intrepid travelers to reach Tucson, AZ. Stemming from our relatively good experience staying at Roswell's Days Inn, we had a reservation made for one in Tucson. Much to our (especially Jason L.'s) shagrin, the one Days Inn can differ greatly from another. The relative danger of the neighborhood it's in becomes apparent when you see razor wire fencing guarding a small storage area for the hotel. We were also slightly (Jason L. was extremely) dissappointed at the lack of a powerful air conditioning unit in our room. Everyone got settled in and got cleaned up to go out to dinner. There was a craving for Mexican food in the air so Dr. Leake directed us past the University of Arizona to a really great restaurant. We only became worried about the place when we saw a woman talking on the phone, balling about how her car was no longer in the parking lot. I ordered a quesadilla and received a fine specimen of the cheesy delight. With satisfied grins on our faces and more than stuffed stomachs, we got back on the road and headed back to our Days Inn. As we approached the hotel there was a frenzy of traffic clogging the streets surrounding our destination. Police officers directed traffic every which way except for the most important one; toward our hotel. What we neglected to realize before dinner was that a small peak near our hotel was to be the site of the city's largest fireworks display. "A" Mountain (a truly clever name) is a small bump in the landscape just west of Tucson's downtown area. Coming off a road trip really makes a body fatigued and we were no exception. The detours that were in place to control traffic flow to various fireworks viewing areas were anything but helpful to us. We circled further and further away from our hotel in hopes that we could find a path that could again reunite us with our overnight resting place. An idea to get on the freeway eventually brought us to the doorstep of the hotel, we illegially parked the Buick, and went out to our room's balcony to watch the show. Although not quite as grandiose or loud as the Ft. Vancouver fireworks back home, there were some really fascinating shapes formed by the exploding shells. After the show there were fire spotting helicopters hovering around A Moutain. A few small blazes were sparked but were soon extinguished by what I'm sure were waiting fire crews.
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