Back to Casino del Sol March 8-11

I decided to return to the Casino del Sol.  The grounds at the Casino del Sol are immaculate and it is very quiet.  The place is so clean and the security guards are all so nice and I forget that I'm parked at a casino.  Sue and Arlene from the WINS showed up.  Sue had promised she would show Arlene around Tucson and I wanted to go to the Kitt National Observatory and see the San Xavier Mission.  It has been a little cool up at Cave Creek and it turned out it was much cooler in Tucson.  In fact one day we had hail.

Tuesday I headed over to the San Xavier Mission de Bac.  It's still under renovation and it will be an ongoing process.  The mission is beautiful and the pictures don't do it justice.

The whole compound area.  There is a school and other departments here

The man sanctuary.  Parts are still being restored.  Mass is every day.

The rotunda.  Pictures don't really show the beauty of it.

                                                     One of the many statures in the garden.


Wednesday Sue, Arlene, and I headed up to the Kitt Observatory.  I didn't realize that there were so many telescopes.  True to scientific nature the scientists can't agree on the number of telescopes.  Some say there are 27 and other say there are about 31.  I was amazed at the number of structures on the mountain top.  The Tohono O'dham nations considers the mountain scared and after much negotiation allowed the government to lease the land only for non-military research purposes.  They also have to give qualified nation members first crack and any new jobs.

                                Overview of the area.  I didn't have my wide angle lense so couldn't get all of the telescopes in one picture.

                                           This is the largest solar telescope.

                                          Inside of the solar telescope

                                           Very large telescope.  I think this one was 8mm

                                           This is the size of one of the telescope mirrors

Three different tours are offered and we took part in all three which brought on an abundance of information overload. The solar telescope was the most interesting.  We were able to see the sun through a reflected image in a different building.  I actually saw some of the flares from the sun and it certainly looked different than I expected.