Across The USA by Dodge
Chapter 12
Let's see, where was I? I just left Phoenix right ("by the time I get to Phoenix, she'll be rising..."), heading for Tucson -- yeah, that was it.
This part of the country is h-o-t hot. The average temperature during summer (when I was there) is 110 degrees! And to think people whinge if the gauge hits around 30c in Bathurst/Orange. One of the days I was in Phoenix it was 112 and it was still 103 at 10pm! It's also pretty amazing driving down the road with cactus dotted across the landscape as far as the eye can see. Any minute you expect to see this roadrunner tearing down the road being hotly pursued by a coyote on a pair of Acme roller-blades.
After leaving Phoenix I drove to Tucson which is only about an hour down the interstate. I went to Old Tucson studios which is a collection of old buildings where they've filmed around 200 westerns over the years. As I mentioned last time, Clint Eastwood's "Joe Kidd" (starring Robert Duvall) was filmed there as was another of his movies "The Outlaw Josey Wales". Some others filmed there include parts of "The Three Amigos", "Young Guns II" and a slew of old John Wayne movies.
I re-watched "Joe Kidd" when I got back home (I've got a copy of nearly all Clint's movies on video) and it was funny seeing all those familiar places. However everyone's getting sick of me saying, whenever I see something familiar in a movie or on the news or a TV show: "Hey, I've been there" or "I saw that when I was in America"!
They run a number of different shows throughout the day at Old Tucson including a magician called "Wizard of the West" who was absolutely great. I'm no expert on magic acts but this guy, whose name I can't remember, was great. One of his acts was where he handcuffed his female assistant, locked her in a box and made her disappear. No more than five seconds later she reappeared, seemingly out of nowhere in a puff of smoke, at the back of the theatre near where I was sitting. I don't know how it was done (something to do with trapdoors, I guess) but it was quite impressive.
The place unfortunately burned down in 1995.
In Tucson I also saw the Davis-Monthan Air Force Base (from through the fence) which is a burial ground for old planes which are bought there from all across the country. It's just an incredible sight -- row after row of battered old planes and helicopters laid out symmetrically. A couple of movies have been filmed there -- "Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man" for instance.
Chapter 13
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