Roadboy's Weekend In Tucson - The Old Pueblo

A Spectacular 27 Mile Drive
San Xavier Del Bac - The White Dove
The Hotel Congress, Cup Cafe and Dillinger's Downfall
A Summer Evening Visit to The Arizona Desert Sonora Museum

I have always loved Tucson.  One of America's oldest cities, Tucson is filled with history, is home to lovely resorts, creative restaurants and the much cherished Arizona Desert Sonora Museum.

It is an amazing bargain to visit Tucson in the summertime when spectacular 4 and 5 star resorts (that have no problem selling rooms in winter for  $350 / Nt) offer rates that flirt with $100 / Nt. Now, having said that, beware, many of the resorts add hidden charges (like absurd $29 / Nt. "Resort Fees").

We left Phoenix Friday after lunch as I wanted to begin the visit with a drive on one of America's most scenic highways, the Catalina Highway. Officially, it is the General Hitchcock Highway that extends from the Tanque Verde area of Tucson up to Mt. Lemmon.

The highway, begun in 1933, was a dream of the former Postmaster General of the US Frank Harris Hitchcock. Hitchcock secured the approval for the road and its funding at the height of the Great Depression. 

The execution of the project began when a prison camp was established at the base of the mountain to supply construction labor to build the road. 

Sadly, during World War II the prison camp became an "Honor Camp" where Japanese Americans were incarcerated and forced to continue its construction. 

After 17 years of construction the highway was completed in 1950.  The highway was widened and greatly improved in 2007. 

The completed project delivered 27 spectacular miles of highway climbing to 8,000 feet while visiting several micro-climates. The views at every turn are truly breathtaking and the temperature at the top in Summerhaven was a refreshing 63° (it was 100° at the base of the road in Tanque Verde). 

Summerhaven, after more than a decade of rebuilding is coming to life. The community suffered almost complete destruction in the 2003 Aspen Fire. The Aspen fire burned about a month and destroyed over 84,000 acres. The price of the fire? Firefighting: $17,000,000. Erosion control: $2,700,000. Reconstruction of utilities: $4,100,000. Plus the loss of 340 structures.

The acrid stench of the Aspen fire drifts all the way to Washington DC. One year earlier, recognizing the fire risk, the Coronado National Forest requested $2,000,000 to implement practical fire prevention measures. Of course, Congress in 2002 was focused only on spending requests for the Iraq war. And, like nearly all upkeep related requests from the National Parks, National Forests and National Monuments during that time, the request was ignored. 

Midway To the Top 

 Spectacular Rock Outcroppings Along the Way

The Hitchcock Memorial

(Oddly - No Longer Accessible?)

The Plaque Dedicating the Highway 

A View to The North Among the Aspens 

Saturday morning was spent visiting Mission San Xavier del Bac (the White Dove of the Desert).

I had read that in summer the best time to visit the Mission is in the morning and that proved sage advice.  Construction on the church began in 1783 and was completed in 1797. At that time it was part of New Spain. Following Mexican independence in 1821, the mission became part of Mexico. The 1854 Gadsden Purchase resulted in the Mission becaming part of the United States. 

The church suffered earthquake damage in 1887. Lightning struck its west tower in 1939. Leaks in 1989 resulted in beginning of an ongoing restoration which continues to this day. 

San Xavier del Bac remains the oldest European structure in Arizona. 

Note The Restoration of West Tower

(The East Tower Awaits Full Restoraton) 

The Baroque Facade

An Exterior Detail

I had not visited the church since the Interior restoration was undertaken and it is spectacular.   Hundreds of years of grime have been removed from its frescoes and its statuary has been painstakingly been restored. The last time I visited the church its golden lions (flanking the altar) were missing (they were stolen in August 1982. Today new lions are in place. Thanks to Spencer and Gloria Giffords (parents of former Tucson Representative Gabrielle Giffords) who commissioned replacement lions from artisans in Mexico in 1983. The Lions, completed in 1985, were then aged in Gloria Giffords studio for 2-1/2 years prior to reinstallation.

The Chancel

(With One of the Golden Lions)

The West Transept

The Transept Dome

For lunch we visited downtown and ate at the Cup Cafe in the historic Hotel Congress. The Hotel Congress was built in 1919 along with the Rialto theater across the street from Tucson's 1907 Train Station. It is perhaps most famous for its fire on January 21, 1934. As it happened one of its guests was John Dillinger. He escaped the fire via a ladder and was identified by a firemen who went back to retrieve his luggage. He was arrested, escaped custody in Indiana and was killed 6 months later in Chicago on July 22, 1934.

Front - The Cup Cafe's Dillinger Menu

Back - The Cup Cafe's Dillinger Menu

Light in the Hotel Congress Nightclub

Dance of Death Mural 

Nightclub Hotel Congress

The visit was sequenced for an afternoon and evening visit to the 98 acre Arizona Sonora Desert Museum.  The complex is part museum, part aquarium and part zoo (with 230 different species of animals). It is only open for evenings on a few Saturday nights each summer. And it is a special time to visit. The animals are more active, there are musicians throughout the grounds and the nightly monsoons frequently create something completely magical.

The Drive to The Museum

(Crossing Gates Pass)

Looking North Toward the Museum

A Mountain Lion

A Fox

An Ocelot

Bighorn Sheep

The Surrounding Views At Sunset

A White Lined Sphinx Moth

(Flies and Behaves Like A Hummingbird)

As if by Irony - A Chance Sighting of Gabrielle Giffords

(Taking a Selfie With Her Husband Shuttle Astronaut Mark Kelly) 

A Summer Storm Roared in Capping Our Evening

Tucson is an on-going story. It is a land of extremes. It owns a rich history filled with heroic people sometimes just living everyday lives. A history filled with joy, music, art and heartache. It offers centuries of myths and legends. And, despite its amazing growth, it remains a true one-of-a-kind.

And it is something very special in summer.

Roadboy's Travels ©2014

The Great Hotel Disappearing Act

Hey, Didn't There Used To Be?

Road warriors tend to notice every minute change in their hotel rooms. And in the past few years the hospitality industry has been busy in their test labs, looking at ways to change operational models, reduce costs and be more sustainable. This has resulted in a variety of new ideas. Many of which have very subtly been implemented.

1. Waste Bins

Where the heck is the garbage can? Since time began there were always two trash cans in every hotel room. There would be one at the desk and the other in the bathroom. Now, more and more the one at the desk is either gone completely or it has been reduced in size, or it has become a multi-compartment recycle / trash bin with both compartments too small to actually hold anything. The result according to the housekeepers? Piles of trash left where the trash can used to be.

2. Little Bottles of Shampoo and Soaps

My routine upon entering a hotel room frequently involves peeking at the amenities. Did they leave me nice soaps? Is the shampoo a premium brand or is it a house brand from China. Hands down the best amenities are provided by Langham Hotels. There you have a box in the bathroom that is filled with every imaginable item. Increasingly, however, I've noticed that many chains (Hilton's Home2 for example) are eliminating bottles of anything. Instead they put those perpetually leaking dispensers on the mirror and in the shower. YUK! There is always soap on the counter or in the tub below the dispenser. I know they say it is more environmentally friendly, but the bottles I take home never go to waste. Many go straight to a local homeless shelter that LOVES to get them.

3. The Minibar

I'm actually good with these disappearing. I can't tell you how many times after checking out a new bill arrives charging me for stuff I did not take.  It got so bad I'd inventory the minibar upon arrival and send a note to the front desk telling them what was missing. The good news is some hotels have now put in an empty mini refrigerator. That is a very good idea. I know lots of travelers who need to take their insulin etc. and those little units are perfect.

4. Morning Newspapers

It used to be if you checked off a little box when you checked in they'd deduct the price of the morning newspaper from your bill. If you didn't they'd deliver a USA Today each day to your room.  Now there is no refund they just leave a short stack of papers on the front counter. This intimidates infrequent travelers who assume they have to pay for a paper. Road Warriors just grab a paper, growl and go on to breakfast. 

5. Restaurants

Increasingly lobby restaurants at limited service hotels (like Courtyards) are being replaced with walk-up limited service cafe's (a la Starbucks). I can't say I miss the hotel restaurants as they were my dining spot "of last resort". 

6. Bathtubs

Make way for the walk-in shower, those soaker tubs are disappearing pretty quickly.

7. Pay Per View TV

On demand movie stations that hijacked the TV and delivered low grade smut are quickly disappearing as we all spend more time on the internet and less time watching television.

8. Phones

Yes even in-room phones are starting to go away. When I walked into the hip Palihotel Melrose in LA recently I was a bit stunned to realize there was no closet, no thermostat and no telephone..... 

9. Robes

Even on executive floors the robes are disappearing. Most of the "one-size-fits-all" robes sure as hell didn't fit Roadboy, I say good riddance.

10. In Room Coffee

The coffee makers are slowly disappearing. OK, this is my line in the sand. If I enter a room and there is no coffee maker I call the front desk and demand one be brought up. Conversely a hotel that delivers quality coffee goes way up in my book.  London's Doubletree Hotel West Ealing will never be mistaken for the Ritz, but it not only had a great tea set up, it had an in-room Nespresso machine! That one feature overcame the small size of the rooms and allowed that hotel to rise in my esteem well above the noisy, confusing, expensive and mostly disappointing new Marriott I stayed in a few days later at Canary Wharf.

11. A Front Desk

Now you walk up to smiling staff at little podiums. Or in the case of an Aloft the "Aloha Desks".

Wait a minute where did my in-room safe go.....

Roadboy's Travels © 2014

William Wrigley Jr.'s Winter "Cottage"

A 50th Wedding Anniversary Gift
La Colina Solana

High upon a hill in Phoenix, in the shadows of Piestawa Peak, rests the venerable Mission Revival Wrigley Mansion. 

The Phoenix Wrigley Mansion

The original 16,000 Square foot "cottage" cost $1,200,000 to build (approximately $20,500,000 in 2014 dollars). Earl Heitschmidt of Los Angeles was the architect. Before designing the Wrigley Mansion Heitschmidt was a key designer of Los Angeles' Biltmore Hotel on Pershing Square. Heitschmidt's later projects include CBS Studios in Hollywood and LA's Park LaBrea.

The home, a wedding gift for William's wife Ada, was completed in 1931 and is the smallest of Wrigley's six homes. It contains 24 rooms and 12 bathrooms. Of the many bedrooms there were only 4 designated for the family. The intent was for the Wrigley's winter guests to instead stay at Wrigley's nearby Arizona Biltmore Hotel.

The Mansion's Main Entry Hall

The Wrigley imprint is found in almost every detail of the home including the rose above the front door, the chewing gum wrapper wallpaper in the telephone room and symbolic fresco references to Ada's French heritage and William's English heritage.

The Phone Room 

With Wrigley Spearmint "Wrapper" Wallcovering

A Rose for Ada 

The Crown Chandelier in the Entry 

The ceiling's were painted by Giovanni Smeraldi (who in 1923 worked with Heitschmidt painting  LA's Biltmore Hotel).

The Living Room

The beautiful tiles in the house were cast in the Pebble Beach Quarry and Tile Works on Catalina Island. Wrigley owned both the tile company and Catalina Island.

Catalina Tile

Door Panel

Woodworking Detail 

The mansion also happens to be where Wrigley died in 1932. After Wrigley's death the family kept the house, using it as one of their winter retreats for many years.

The home was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1989 and was purchased in 1992 by meat packing heir and musician George (Geordie) Hormel. Hormel carefully restored the home and enclosed its large porches which expanded it to 19,000 Square feet.  Since Biltmore covenants prevent the building from being used as a restaurant, Hormel opened it as a "private" club, open to anyone, for a token fee.

Geordie Hormel was somewhat of a legend as well.  His life included four marriages (the first being Leslie Caron), numerous children and a successful musical career of his own.

Geordie's September 1951 Wedding to Leslie Caron

Geordie regularly performed in the mansion on its magnificent Steinway until his own death in 2006.

The "Blank Check" Steinway

And the Steinway is not just any Steinway. This was one of only two ever created with a "jukebox" player feature. It was ordered by William Wrigley before the stock market crash and reportedly the Steinway Company offered to release him from the order for the piano. Instead, lore has it that Wrigley sent Steinway a blank check to confirm he still wanted it. The other Player Steinway is in the Smithsonian. Many of the mansion's guests played the piano including Liberace and George Gershwin. Liberace reportedly attempted to buy it but was told it went with the house.

Geordie's Lounge

After 20 years of living in Phoenix I had never made the trek up the hill to see William Wrigley's cottage. Last Saturday I corrected that oversight with a lovely lunch and a tour. 

Ada's Cottage on the Sunny Hill 

1932

Like all good architecture, the building has outlived it's creators and benefactors. And, now 82 years after its completion, Wrigley's Sunny Hill still hosts new generations of Phoenicians and their guests.

Roadboy's Travel © 2014

The Myth About "Them"

Rant Alert!

After traveling most of my life I always return home very much in love with my country. 

It is filled with wonderful people. People who work hard and play by the rules. People willing to look you in the eye and give you the shirt off their back.   

But, because I travel I also see firsthand what life is like in the nations I visit. 

So, when I return home it is hard to reconcile the stunning misinformation so many Americans readily accept from the American media. Misinformation that gets repeated over and over in vain attempts to make it feel true. These are people who rarely leave their own city, let alone country. Yet, they genuinely believe they know what it is like out in the scary "There". While the world keeps getting smaller, these folks never go experience it.

I believe America's current polarization is the direct result of an unreasonable national increase in fear and poverty.  It is now easiest to blame "Them". "Them" being terrorists or illegal aliens or any other scapegoat you choose.

Our current national fear began with Sputnik, simmered during the Cuban Missile Crisis and then cooked as global stockpiles of cold war era nuclear weapons just become larger and larger.

But I think the present tidal wave of national fear was unleashed when two airplanes hit the World Trade Center.

Why is fear so important to politicians? If not for fear, why, in the space of less than a decade, would Americans willingly forsake so many of the very civil liberties that used to be the envy of the rest of the free world?

Why would we welcome a poisonous "Patriot Act", or its subsequent spawn? How is it we have awakened to an era when everything we write, say or speak is recorded and becomes political leverage for whichever party is in power?

It is because we have collectively became frightened of "Them".

So, who are "They"?

Some of "Them" have skin pigmentation other than ours. "They" might even profess religions other than our own - or no religion at all. The point is "They" are frequently not like us.

And, in the process of becoming afraid, we collectively.....

1. Embraced "stupid".
We have devalued public education. We even allowed public tax dollars to be diverted from public schools to private ones. We sat back and idly watched our best educational institutions become reserved exclusively for the children of the rich. And, while teachers are revered in most of the rest of the world, we now treat them, not as scholars and educators, but as babysitters. 

Somewhere along the way we even began to ridicule our smartest kids, calling them "Geeks" and "Nerds". 

The US spends 5.65% of our GDP on education. While places like Cuba spend 13% of their GDP. "Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also"
Matthew 6:21

2. Became less healthy.
Because we (including our Supreme Court) now believe corporations are people, we allow insurance companies the right to use our premiums to lobby congress. As a result, we pay more per capita for healthcare than any country in the world. We pay for everything twice. Once to the insurance company then to the healthcare system. 

Yet our healthcare is now far from "the envy of the rest of the world" some keep professing. And deep down we all know it. Insurance companies are now gatekeepers that actively obstruct our access to healthcare. They care only about the bottom line, not our health.

In fact, when compared to the 180-200 or so developed countries in the world America's ranking is pretty shabby.

Life Expectancy - America ranks: 42
Mother dying in Childbirth - America ranks: 52
Infant mortality - America ranks: 56
In category after category we rank solidly behind every EU and industrialized country in the world. In fact, we rank below some not-so industrialized countries as well (i.e. Serbia, Croatia, Cuba and Slovenia).

So next time someone blathers on about how bad healthcare is in Canada or Norway or Germany. Or England or Italy, just say Bullshit! The fact is citizens in those countries pay far less for healthcare and live longer and healthier lives than we do.

3. Failed "Nation Building 101"

After almost five decades of failed "Nation Building", from Vietnam to Afghanistan we have mortgaged mega trillions of our national treasure in the Military Industrial Complex Dwight Eisenhower warned us about. Yet, all we have discovered over and over is that our blood and advanced weaponry never remakes another country in our own image. We've killed and maimed (physically and emotionally) whole generations of Americans. 

While other countries require compulsory national service of ALL their children (rich or poor), we give our rich kids a free pass to register for college and play lacrosse. Our poor frequently can only escape poverty by joining the military. I cringe when I hear someone insincerely thanking them "for their service" on planes and in supermarkets. I say thank them with good jobs when they return and instant access to first class VA Hospitals.

In countries with National Service the young serve where needed; the Army, cleaning up cities even maintaining trails in National Parks. 

4. Gave away our middle class

That ship has sailed. Our middle-class jobs (the ones that had decent salaries) now reside overseas. In the quest to create short-term dividends for retired shareholders, our children got screwed. Today few Millennial's expect a standard of living better than their parents.

In record numbers Millennials live at home and enter the workforce later. If they are able to go to college at all most emerge deeply in debt. Fewer get married. Even fewer attend church. Most are left with no choice but to postpone families. They rent years longer. Many cannot even afford to insure and operate a car (i.e. hence the rise of "Zipcar"). They are not lazy. In fact, I think Millennial's are downright heroic in their ability to remain optimistic.  

My data came from the Pew Trust and the CIA World Factbook. The CIA Factbook is fascinating, you can check it out here. 

So unplug your computer, dish or cable TV. Take a weekend and go visit the next city over, then the next state over, then the next country over.

The ones you've never been too, but think you know so much about. 

Get off your ass and out of your comfort zone. 

Go meet "Them". 

Perhaps American's will finally become "Us".

We will all be better for it.

Roadboy's Travels © 2014

A Postcard From London

Ms. M Sends Photos

Today I received an e-mail with photos from Ms. M (who has relocated to London until November). She has been visiting both the normal tourist sights (British Museum and the V&A) and some less well known sights such as the Camden and Horse Stable Markets. 

She also went to see the Return of the Rudeboy and Tattoo Exhibits at the Somerset House. 

The Camden Market

(Home of Affordable Vintage Clothing)

Umbrella's at the Camden Market 

The Horse Stable Market

The Horse Stable Market

Make Your Own Designer Ice Cream Bar At Selfridges

Summer at the Somerset House

From the RudeBoy Exhibit

From the Somerset RudeBoy Exhibit

Part of the Somerset Tattoo Exhibit

Flattened Horns in The V&A

A Sneaked Photo of The Bridal Gown Exhibit at the V&A

Part of the Clock and Timepiece Exhibit

At the British Museum

She went to a concert by David Arnold (scored recent Bond Films and the Sherlock theme). She also got to see Martin Freeman (Watson in the New BBC / PBS Masterpiece Series Sherlock) in Richard III. She also has tickets to the Monty Python reunion.

Stay tuned!  As she keeps me posted I'll keep you posted.

Roadboy's Travels © 2014