Thursday, January 14, 2016

Tucson 3rd time in 2015 first time in 2016

I love killing multiple birds with a single stone. This one was easy, visit Chephart Yosh over New
Years. This allows us to get our 3rd Chephart Yosh fix for 2015 and our first for 2016.

Beside our normal great dinners with Chephart Yosh and working out at Canyon Ranch, we had two special events this trip. Two items on our to-do list the Bio-Sphere 2 and get a Sonora Hot Dog.

We decided to visit the Bio-Sphere 2 on New Year's Eve. While the sphere is open everyday, we thought New Years would be the least crowded. What a great call, my brother and sister in-law Ross and Sue meet us at the Sphere. Our tour group was a total of 6 people. The four of us plus two others.

If we are visiting Bio-Sphere 2 where is Bio-Sphere 1?

I leave that for you to figure out, a hint Bio-Sphere 2, as big as it is, is smaller than Bio-Sphere 1.

Bio-Sphere 2 was created as an experiment to see if humans could live in a self-contained environment. This was back in the 80's. This experiment was a great success, a lot was learned. After the experiment was complete the University of Arizona took over the facility and along with private funding has created the largest laboratory for experimenting on how changes in the environment might change our environment.

What does that mean? There are several different micro environments within Bio-Sphere 2, desert, rain forest, ocean, forest, etc... Being in a controlled environment everything can be regulated. For example the CO2 levels can be raised in the rain forest, simulating a rise in our carbon output. It can
then be observed, how this increase in CO2 effects, plant life, ocean temperature, and acidity.

The tour took about 2 hours and was both educational and interesting. One of the high lights was the Lung. Being a giant great house, the air within the Bio-Sphere 2 expands when heated (during the day) and shrinks when cooled (during the night).

During the initial experiment the Bio-Sphere was sealed air tight. Once sealed, without a lung as the air expands it would have nowhere to go, as the pressure would build the glass would blow.

The lung is a huge rubber diaphragm that can expand as the air is heated and shrink, as the air cools.

We visited the lung and got to see this in action, by opening a door within the lung which allow air out of Bio-Sphere 2. The doorway was like a wind tunnel as the diaphragm shrunk and air was forced out the doorway. Once the door was re-closed, the diaphragm slowly started to re-inflate as the warm air from the Bio-Sphere 2 started filling up the lung.

Like I mentioned all meals that Chephart Yosh prepared for us are great, and all the classes at Canyon Ranch are great.

A Sonora Hot Dog! What is a Sonora Hot Dog? To be honest I am not sure. We invited Chephart Yosh to join us, at first she was hesitant, once her Brother, Tom and
Sister, Barbra decided to join us Chephart Yosh was all in.

What we knew was Tucson was famous Sonora Hot Dogs, what we did not know was where to get one and what a Sonora Hot Dog is..

After picking up Tom and Barbra, Chephart Yosh suggested we head to South Tucson which has more of the traditional Mexican eateries. We were going under the assumption that a Sonora Hot Dog was a Mexican food. After about an hour of trolling the streets of South Tucson we found Ruiz Hot Dogs a food truck that clearly
had Sonora Hot Dogs. Ruiz Hot Dogs is located at South 12th Ave and West 22nd Street. What we did not know was we stumbled onto the best place in the entire world for Sonora Hot Dogs. They only serve Sonora Hot Dogs, and they served them only one way, "Loaded".

We are still not sure what a Sonora Hot Dog is but here is what we think it is. It all started with a fresh bun that is sealed at each end. A Hot Dog is placed inside the bun, chili, onions, spices are added. You can then add guacamole and cheese on your own. I am sure we missed a few ingredients, all that matters is they were delicious, so delicious we each had three and we each took three home.

As great as the Sonora Hot Dog was, so was the restaurant or should I say food truck, there were two
people working, one taking the orders and serving and the other cooking. Neither spoke English, but boy could they make a mean Sonora Hot Dog. There were a few tables to sit at by the truck as well as a VIP section within the truck.

Another great trip to visit Chephart Yosh and learn more about Tucson.

Cheers,

DUG

Pictures

1 comment:

cara menggugurkan kandungan said...

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