I'm planning a vacation road trip to the southwest. Anyone from Tucson, AZ or that has been there? What is the city like?
I did the same a couple of years ago, truck and camper traveling. In Tuscon - go see the desert museum.. very cool stuff there. ANd if you're into planes, there's a aviation museum on the south part of town. They've got tons of old planes/military jets, and an SR-71 - biiiiiig plane. Otherwise, the southern part of the state has lots of old west tourist spots, like OK Corral, silver mines/rides into the mines, etc. Other parts in Az have old Indian ruins, etc... The town itself just seemed like a ..... town.
I lived in Tucson on two separate occasions for about 9 years total. I highly recommend visiting the city. Most activities depend on your age, family situation, time of year, activity level, etc. http://www.tripadvisor.com/Attractions-g60950-Activities-Tucson_Arizona.html
Tucson is a well kept secret. You can generally see about 60 miles. We got a little snow last night at the higher elevations. But it is nice to look at through the palm fronds. A two car port with solar will heat a good size pool year round. and the thermals will take you up to 12,500 any day of the year. We have a pristine desert surrounding the metro and this is the home of the Suarho national forest. All the white tails come here for conversion to freighters and our military bases house everything from intelligence to US and foriegn flight operations. Naturally, we participate at the highest level of the international drug and border type trading. Our chop shops are renouned in the 12 and 8 cyclinder range and whole specimens are going south at unprecided rates. All the pictures of Mars, Juniper and space originate from here in that we design and package all those rover and optical things. Laryy Harris will autograph you requests for his signature over at the finance department and there is a training ground for future Nobel folks too; they move East from here...lol.. We start about 25 or so real estate developments here a month with an unbelievable cheap labor suppply and our 6,000 real estate agents who are retired women mostly will spend all the time in the world with you. the lower reaches of the beautiful mountains that surround Tucson are where the super custom homes look over the city and across to the mountains on the other side. Some custom communities feature golf and others feature runways for those who like to skip on down to Mexico for big game fishing, or skiing over in Colorado or Utah Some of the best gliding in the world originates here. We do not use a Sun city approach here... We go custom and build from scratch with inexpensive everything. we have a very positive balance of payments here.....much more money in than out. We have destination resorts for every whim you can imagine. Oh casinos.....I can hear the TomToms now. Our neighborhoods have provision for equestrian everything. And the city maintains the trails. Our cycling is renowned as well. We make the records for healthy people and our medical institutions are cutting edge..lol... Weil (check your weeklies for his hints on health) is here and so are the heart and cancer folks. Three local smaller towns are running additional health delivery at the rate of 100,000 a month since our HD model has reached critical mass. All hosptials have pounched holes in their walls to add the big new equipment. Tucson is running at a much higher level. we are the model for delivery of health services to low density populations. The London Philharmonic was sold out as are all the NY shows that pass through. Women collegiate atheletes set more records than men but that is okay too. California woem are something else but UA is really well known for attitude and the desert smile. The pipeline for Tequila has never been shut down in Tucson and the Mexican beer international test site is 24/7. tucson is the Premier supplier of spring Break talent and skills everywhere but the pan handle of FLorida. florida is a hair problem for us. We have heat here and it is dry heat so AC doesn't cost anything: we use swamp coolers year round almost. The Arizona Inn keeps a full compliment of the annual copies of the NYSR. We are far enough East that California wines have to compete with international wines. At the local Steak house, the wine three ring binder (about 100 pages) lists wines by country of origin. Its not poured out of the bottle either. We are tripling our little office on the desert in January...lol... People keep flying in from all over and there are lots of groups meeting and several a week now. We have a lot of snow birds come here. They have places they stay. There is a weekly newsletter for them and they do use our public courses which the city contributes atmosphere and grey water to. I think there are about 120 locations for showbirds now. It is a local custom to really be hospitible to everyone. We cut ties off here, though at the "dude" hangouts. We did cancel the construction of 7 new golf courses in the last city council session. Enough is enough. Harleys are "in" here and no one wears helmits. There is a pickup orientation here as well and gun butts do scratch all the cafe seating. Our most popular subgroup of the IBD MeetUp meets at the Triple T truck stops. Oh, we have the largest Swedish owned tomato factory in the world here. And the Pope has a telescope here. It is snowy around the telescopes this week. We have tax surpluses here and no homeless person is allowed to sleep out of doors this time is the year. Tucson is the city of choice for Gay Congress persons and city council persons.
And where Bob Sharpe planted a money cactus for me! Go Desert Ventures! If anyone is looking for a great place to grow grandfatherly...look no further than Rancho Resort! http://www.ranchosahuarita.com/vision/facts.php
UA has UMC and they are continuing to expand all the while. Its a FED grant thing as you know. The hospice aspect is cutting edge too. Sunstone is an example. CDC has several ongoing programs in the area as a consequence of the various exposure patterns due to extremes here. Mining, radiation of minerals and gases, the solar component and the aging (geriarics). There is also the Weil factor since he has really enlivened the proactive and preventative stuff in his wholistic model which is being adopted elsewhere fairly readily nowadays. Tucson is also a real draw for certain mindsets in the medical industry. Mayo is up north in Phoenix and in terms of UD we (Liz and I) connect there (UD rental units with elevators for short term occupancy, etc)
Never had the pleasure of staying in Tucson, but have been through there several times by RV. Weil was here (in Maui) a couple months ago for a seminar. Not familiar with "UD". Is it referring to "universal design"? We were looking at the Mayo clinic to get some further tests on a tumor discovered in my wifes leg. Unfortunately as things turned out, I just put her on a plane to Stanford today. We'll see where it goes from there.
Yes, Universal Design makes it possible to prepare for the future when life gets a little challenging. The designs near Mayo that I spoke of were the first IKEA participated in in its hstory. We reviewed one of the recent IKEA store opening prior to opening and they ask for "path" through the store from a UD perspective; we also got to discussing a separate catalogue for the physically challenged. AZ it their piloting state at this point. Germany or portions thereof are also a focus. We also are following the first high rise effort in Vegas as it considers some of these things. Good luck with things.
It's about time that started catching on. Been a long time since the ADA (american disabilities act) started changing things (I worked on some school conversions). Universal design seems like the next logical step. I'm surprised I hadn't heard about it before. What a great concept and service. Regards, EZ