Christmas in Mexico

Last year, some of our more adventurous readers made an RV trip deep into Mexico for Christmas. While it's generally our policy to stay away from the appearance of being a journal or personal blog with this magazine, we thought that the entries from Drew and Donna Holloway made such an interesting read that we wanted to pass it along for everyone to share. Drew and Donna are from Canada, and while their trip started earlier in the year, we pick up as they stay a few days in Tuscon, Arizona, before heading south of the border. This will be part one of three articles, running this month, January, and February. We think you'll enjoy reading along with the Holloways. At least, we did. So, here you are:

Hello Everybody from a wet and soggy Tucson;

We started our stay in Tuscon with above average temperatures and now it’s below average and raining. I can see snow on the mountains across from us. We have managed to get in some hiking in Sabino Canyon.

We visited the Titan Missile Museum just south of Tucson. This is the only one left from the cold war. All others have been decommissioned and destroyed. At one time there were 54 sites around the southern U.S. Why the southern U.S. you ask? Politics is the answer. Remember Barry Goldwater? He was from Arizona. We had a tour through the silo and control room and a simulation of detonating the missile. While the silos were all destroyed, the missiles were not. Some have been used to launch satellites and some were used in the Gemini Program. NASA still has several waiting to be used.

Our next stop was the San Xavier Mission also just south of Tucson. The church was built in the late 1700’s by the Franciscans. In recent years it has undergone extensive renovations with some still being done on the outside. It’s still an active church.

The next day was spent at the Pima Air & Space Museum. The museum has 4 hangars full of planes of all sizes and shapes. They also have hundreds housed outside. Air Force 1 from the Kennedy/Johnson era is there and one that you can walk through. For today’s standards, it’s pretty meager, but was probably luxurious for the sixties. The Black Bird is there as well. Probably ahead of its time for the sixties. A very up to date spy plane with all the bells and whistles. They also have displays on Black pilots, W.W. II, POWs, bombardment squadrons and float planes. One interesting display was about a plane called the Lady be Good that went down in Libya in 1944 and was found by an oil exploration company in 1959. The men had tried to hike out but perished. Their bodies were found a year later. Pretty gut wrenching to read part of the journal that was kept by one of the men.