We’ve had a nice visit with my Dad this month. In addition to some old favorites like Bisbee and the local canyons, we did some new things on this trip.

First, we visited the San Pedro Riparian area. This is a lovely river near Sierra Vista that is known for its beauty and wildlife (especially birds). We’ve driven by it a million times and always said we wanted to stop and see it so we finally did. It was beautiful, and we will definitely be returning to do some longer hikes.

We also visited the Pima Air and Space Museum and AMARG (aka the Boneyard) in Tucson. My dad is an aviation history aficionado, and coming from Dayton, home of Wright-Pat AFB and the world’s largest military aviation museum, we wanted to see how this compared. It was impressive. I have to say that all the military aspects of it were pretty depressing. I don’t remember that from all the hours of my childhood spent looking at military planes.

My favorite part was an art exhibit of paintings made on old planes.

I’ve driven by AMARG, the “boneyard” for military planes, a ton of times and always wanted to see it from the inside. Unfortunately, the tour we went on didn’t let us get out of the bus, but we did see a huge number of out-of-service planes. They are used for parts and also sold off to “friendly” governments.

After that, we took a quick trip to Saguaro National Park. It was beautiful and is another place we’ll be back to for some hiking.

We also finally made it to the Shakespeare ghost town near Lordsburg. More pics here.