Today we took a ride across the dessert toward Ajo. To get there, oddly enough, we had to take the Ajo Highway. It’s also Highway 86. We had no plans to go all the way to Ajo because it was further than we wanted to go, and Diane wanted to get home before dark. There’re coyotes out there, too.

On the way she saw a sign for Kitt Peak National Observatory, so we voted 2-1 to take that side trip and we were glad we did. It was a 12-mile trip on Highway 286 to this complex facility, but it was perfect for getting a look at the valley floor we crossed. We also saw got to see most of the structures scattered around on top of the mountain, but we could only go in the gift shop. Those are always open to the public.

Our destination.

We got to look through a telescope made specifically to view the sun. That was very interesting, as was the gentleman providing information about it.

It’s not often one gets an opportunity to view the sun directly. We could see the flares flying off the edges that were a million miles long. There was another eye piece that allowed us to see the sunspots as well as the true color of the sun.

He held on to Max while we looked.

I didn’t get his name, but he was stationed on the USS Midway CV-41 while in the Navy so I trusted him with Max. Also, Max thought he was OK, too.

One of the most interesting things up there was the hot air balloon they use to get you high enough to see the entire town they built on the mountain. The balloon was tethered to a winch so it wouldn’t fly away. Thankfully, it was very calm, so I was a snap to get a clear photo without having to hang on to the basket. The only building not in view was the Safeway that’s located to the left, just out of range. Pretty amazing stuff. If it had been open today, I’d’a bought a sandwich.

In the welcome center, the bldg to the left in the above photo, is a portion of the visitor’s log with some pretty important people listed.

I wanted to add our names to the list of visitors, but they couldn’t find it so we couldn’t. I left them our names just in case it turns up.

In the parking lot was this government Equinox that has a dent on the back kinda like ours. For a second I thought they had been to our house and backed into our garbage cans.

On the way back to the valley floor Diane let me take photos of the scenery.

Once we made it to the valley floor, we stopped at a McDonald’s for a sandwich then we went home and ended the day. I took Max for his customary walk, but we got to the end of our row and he heard a man talking which must have triggered a bad memory because he immediately ended the walk and made it clear that we were going home. All the while he was looking over his shoulder as we walked away from his voice.

Blessings to you all.