Kristy Tung came to visit for Thanksgiving again this year! Her roommate's grandma lives in Tucson and Krust drove down with them from Provo. It was so good having her around and catching up on life.
It was our first time cooking a Thanksgiving meal, but it really wasn't bad because we were only feeding 3 people and all of us cooked/cleaned together. We followed my Mom's bacon covered turkey technique and it it came out quite nicely. We also had mashed potatoes and gravy, rolls, stuffing, sparkling apple juice, orange jello with peach bits, and french silk pie. I thought that the turkey was tender enough for Elliot to chew, but later found a big wad of partially chewed turkey stuck to the roof of his mouth, which also explained why he started turning his nose up at the mashed potatoes.
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| Thanksgiving Dinner |
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The day before Thanksgiving we toured Biosphere 2. It is this giant enclosure built by a millionaire in the late 1980's. It has a rainforest, ocean, mangrove swamp, grassland, and desert biome inside. They can completely seal it off from the outside world to create an almost completely controlled environment for various environmental science experiments. A group of 8 scientists sealed themselves in from 1991-1993, but ended up spending so much time farming that they weren't able to do very much of the research they were being paid to do. Nowadays the University of Arizona owns it and has a lot of research projects going on, but they let tour groups come through which means that things like air can flow in and out.
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| Outside of some of the buildings (it was really big) |
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| The front door was strikingly similar to the hatch door from Lost |
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| The rainforest was definitely the favorite biome |
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| Jungle friends |
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| I loved all the trusses. It was some cool architecture. |
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| Krust was attacked by a T-Rex in the climate history museum |
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| There was a GORGEOUS sunset on the drive home |
We celebrated Black Friday by doing the Spanish Colonial History tour, starting with the San Xavier Mission. We came home for an Elliot nap and lunch, then drove down to Tubac to do the Presidio walking tour.
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| Getting the full cultural experience of frybread tacos at San Xavier. It had some mysterious clay-like something in it that was not very good, but the rest of it was tasty. |
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| Krust was right at home at the front of the 1885 schoolhouse in Tubac |
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| Elliot was very well behaved and not at all deserving of the dunce cap |
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| The colonists pulverized silver ore by dragging boulders over them using this contraption |
We spent Saturday walking the Turquoise Trail in downtown Tucson. It connects a bunch of historic sites. It took longer than anticipated, but was worth the trip into town. It was great weather for it.
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| Imitating the cactus |
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| Tucson Courthouse |
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| Brightly colored buildings by the Visitor Center |
We also played many games of Age of Empires while Elliot slept. Aaron kicked our butts over and over again until we started playing on a team against computer players. Krust and I got to learn his secrets and then we were able to beat him (2 against one... but still we considered it a major victory). Krust had a long winning streak playing Monopoly Deal, but Aaron eventually managed to win.
