According to a recent Wall Street Journal article, airlines are adding more time to their scheduled flight times:
“Across the airline industry, carriers have been adding minutes to “block times”—the scheduled durations—baking delays into trips so that late flights officially arrive “on-time” and operations run better because flights pull into gates more often on schedule.
For some airlines, longer scheduled times for flights reflects the reality of inefficiency in the nation’s air travel system, which often can’t handle the volume of planes without delay, especially when bad weather hits. For others, lengthening scheduled arrival times boosts on-time rankings charted by the Department of Transportation: Those numbers can have a real effect on public perception. And in some cases, block times have grown simply because airlines have been making so many schedule changes as they have reduced capacity over the past two years. Flights that took off without a wait can now end up stuck waiting behind a line of jets because departure times have been changed.”
With the recent security changes, and now these “padded” block times, it appears as though we are going to take a little longer getting to where we want to go.
Don’t worry, you can always log on to The Roaming Boomers website, and we will do our best to keep you informed and entertained.
Just a short one hour drive from Phoenix, Arizona lies the quintessential cowboy town of Wickenburg, Arizona.
After the 1848 Mexican American war, a great deal of the southwest became a part of the United States, and the lure of “gold in them thar hills” became a magnet for adventurers to the area. One such gold seeker was Henry Wickenburg who struck gold with his Vulture mine, and together with other miners formed the town of Wickenburg, Arizona in 1863.
Today, Wickenburg, with is close proximity to Phoenix, has become a very popular tourist destination. We made our most recent trip to Wickenburg during their 61st Annual Gold Rush Days, which featured gold panning, a mucking and drilling contest, a classic car show, and the National Senior Pro Rodeo Tour.
We decided, having never been to a rodeo, that a rodeo might be a lot of fun. When we arrived, we were amazed to see these 40, 50, and even 60 year old men willingly riding bucking broncos, and most amazingly, torturing themselves on the back of a raging bull!
Wickenburg, Arizona is a worthwhile day trip from the Phoenix area, and I am certain that Carol and I will be back to do even more exploring. One of the things that perked my ears, during our most recent trip , is that Wickenburg is also the Dude Ranch Capitol of the World! Not that sounds like another fine reason to plan another visit to Wickenburg, Arizona.
Tubac, Arizona makes for a wonderful day trip from Phoenix, Arizona.
Tubac is 45 minutes south of Tucson, sits on a beautiful valley floor that peers onto 10,000 ft peaks, and also boasts a healthy, and growing artist colony.
We left for Tubac at 7:00, on a Saturday morning, and arrived at our destination at 10:00. The drive is a fairly flat drive, with quite a number of majestic mountain to gaze upon. We made the trip in February, and were rewarded with beautiful snow covered peaks in Tucson, and again as we approached Tubac.
We made our journey during Tubac’s 51st Annual Festival of the Arts, but you will be rewarded with a great many artist boutiques regardless of what time of the year you venture Tubac’s way.
If you are a lover of art, and desire to find a collection of artists in one location, Tubac just might be your ticket. We greatly enjoyed our visit, and we are sure you will too.
Tubac is a popular Arizona destination because of its quaint, beautiful setting with 10,000 foot mountain views in the background, and its reputation for having a large collection of unique artist boutiques. But that is for another story.
The Tumacacori Mission was founded by the Jesuits in 1691, and over the course of the next 100 years became the regions most powerful social and economic force. In 1848 the mission was abandoned as a result of political problems between Spain, Mexico, and the United States.
Tumacacori is a short 10-minute drive from Tubac, and is a worthy diversion from shopping in the art boutiques.
Here are a few of my photographs from Tumacacori National Historical Park:
This Thursday, The Roaming Boomers will be visiting the Phoenix Symphony for a performance of Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf set to the 2008 Oscar winning annimated short film. This will be great fun, and we look forward to sharing it with you.
The Roaming Boomers
According to a recent Wall Street Journal article, airlines are adding more time to their scheduled flight times:
