October is Coming. Horror Movie Marathon Time.

It's so close. My favorite month.

I typically spend almost every free moment in the month of October having scary movie marathons.
I like almost every type of horror flick, except for the super-gory torture films. No Saw for me, thanks. I like to be scared. For me, torture films are just vomit-inducing. I spend the whole movie hiding behind my hands...not because I am frightened, but because watching someone in excruciating pain makes me feel literally nauseous.

Anyway, each to their own, right?

I like those movies that have an eerie setting...that start out unsettling and build to a terrifying apex. I love classic horror, up to and including black and white and silent films. I love ghost stories and haunted houses...monsters and aliens...mind-benders that make you wonder if the character was really seeing horrible things or were they just crazy the whole time?

So, I thought I'd post some horror movie reviews.

Let's start with what is streaming on Netflix, because I'll watch most of my movies there. As of today there are some great titles in their horror section. Each of the movie descriptions will be from imdb.com. And of course, I'll only be reviewing what I have actually watched, but there are other things on there that you might be interested in as well.

1. The Cabin in the Woods

"Five friends go for a break at a remote cabin in the woods, where they get more than they bargained for. Together, they must discover the truth behind the cabin in the woods." 
 Well, that doesn't tell you much.  Joss Whedon co-wrote this. 'Nuff said. There's a great juxtaposition of humor and horror in this film. Fantastic performances, and great character dialogue- the kind you expect from a Whedon film. I loved this. It takes the typical slasher movie, and explains why it all has to happen the way it does. The end result is something that is a lot more fun to watch than any slasher ever hoped to be.

2. House at the End of the Street

 "When a teenager and her mother move to a little town, the girl finds that an accident happened in the house at the end of the street. But things get complicated when she befriends a boy who is the only survivor in the accident."
This was pretty messed up. I thought I knew what was happening for most of this movie, and then boom. Nope. Whoa. I love surprise endings. This probably won't go down as one of my favorites ever, but it was definitely worth watching.

3. Paranormal Activity 3

"In 1988, young sisters Katie and Kristi befriend an invisible entity who resides in their home."
Of all of the Paranormal Activity movies, the first and this one are my personal favorites. This one had me on the edge of my seat a lot. I think it's always more scary for me when it's the children who are being haunted. Maybe because you identify with whatever character you're being shown, and being a kid for the story adds a level of vulnerability on top of everything. In any event, this is good for a scare, and worth watching. But seriously- enough of these found footage movies already. Only a handful are any good. This just happens to be one.

4. Event Horizon

"A rescue crew investigates a spaceship that disappeared into a black hole and has now returned...with someone or something new on-board."
This terrified me. Holy cow. This is legitimately really scary. It gave me nightmares when I first saw it, and I re-watched it last year. Yep...still horrifying. Maybe it's Sam Neill. That man has been in some crazy films.

5. The Possession

"A young girl buys an antique box at a yard sale, unaware that inside the collectible lives a malicious ancient spirit. The girl's father teams with his ex-wife to find a way to end the curse upon their child."
Wow. I've seen a lot of "possession-exorcism" movies before, but there were a few things that made this stand out for me.  First, the young girl who becomes possessed- she is fantastic. What a great little actress. Second, I've never seen a Jewish exorcism movie before. It was kind of intense. Third, there's a scene where they do an MRI on the kid., and well...just watch the movie. Yikes.

6. The Awakening

"In 1921, England is overwhelmed by the loss and grief of World War I. Hoax exposer Florence Cathcart visits a boarding school to explain sightings of a child ghost. Everything she believes unravels as the 'missing' begin to show themselves."
I liked this. I don't know that it scared me a lot, but it was eerie, with a few good scares mixed in. What I liked about it was that it was another one with a twist ending that I didn't see coming.

7. A Haunting at Silver Falls

"A small town is haunted by the twin daughters of a wrongfully convicted man. Young Jordan is sent down the path to who the real killer is only to find the killer is very close to her."
This was just ok. I feel like the creepy twins should have scared me more, but really they are just trying to get help catching their killer, and that's not really a spoiler- it's pretty obvious early on. The ending was supposed to be a surprise, but I had already figured out who the killers were about half way through.  It's still not bad...just not awesome.

8. The Evil Dead (1981)

"Five friends travel to a cabin in the woods, where they unknowingly release flesh-possessing demons."
There are remakes of this, so it's important to note that this is the original, in all of its cult-classic horrible goodness. This is one of my favorites. Yeah, it is really gory, and I said I don't care much for that, but c'mon...the blood was chocolate. The special effects were stop-motion, and none of it looks terribly real by modern standards. It is really scary, though. "I'll swallow your soul!!!" Gah! Besides...Bruce Campbell. That's all I need to hear.

9.  V/H/S

"When a group of misfits is hired by an unknown third party to burglarize a desolate house and acquire a rare VHS tape, they discover more found footage than they bargained for."
This was disturbing. I wouldn't say it was scary, as much as it was just really brutal and sexually explicit. It was a weird, compilation of found footage segments that all are sort of focused on sex and violence and paranormal things. One of the creepiest segments showed a couple of guys trying to pick up a girl to take back to their hotel and get freaky. They find one who says nothing but, "I like you." Well, things got freaky, just not the way they intended.  Surprise, surprise. Some of the segments are better than others, obviously, but the whole thing is disturbing.

10. Identity

"Stranded at a desolate Nevada motel during a nasty rainstorm, ten strangers become acquainted with each other when they realize that they're being killed off one by one."
I watched this a while ago. I remember it being pretty scary, and I loved John Cusack in it, and I remember it was kind of a mind-bender. It's not one of my favorites, but it was a pretty good movie.

11. Don't Be Afraid of the Dark

 "A young girl sent to live with her father and his new girlfriend discovers creatures in her new home who want to claim her as one of their own."
The beginning of this movie- AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!
I had to watch it between my fingers. Holy cow. And then there are these horrifying little monsters that are trying to take this child and eat her! Eat her! This scared the crap out of me. Guillermo Del Toro does that to me though. His creatures are always so horrible! But in a good way.

12. Carrie

"A young, abused and timid 17-year-old girl discovers she has telekinesis, and gets pushed to the limit on the night of her school's prom by a humiliating prank."
The original movie with Sissy Spacek...yes please. There's a remake of this coming out soon, but I have a hard time imagining anybody could play Carrie better than Spacek. It's a classic. Watch it.

13. Children of the Corn

"A young couple is trapped in a remote town where a dangerous religious cult of children believe everyone over the age of 18 must be killed."
This is another one that honestly needs no introduction. This is scary. If you have never seen this, you should. Creepy kids, crazy cult...what else can I say?

14. The Last Will and Testament of Rosalind Leigh

" An antiques collector inherits a house from his estranged mother only to discover that she had been living in a shrine devoted to a mysterious cult. Soon, he comes to suspect that his mother's oppressive spirit still lingers within her home and is using items in the house to contact him with an urgent message."
This is a movie that is really unique. You only ever see one actor, but you often hear the voice of his mother telling her story. (She is voiced by Vanessa Redgrave.)  It's a slow-burner. The movie builds for a while, but when it got good and scary, I really felt unsettled. But then...are things what they seem? This is another movie that makes you question what you think you have figured out. I really liked this, I think, primarily because it isn't like a lot of other movies in the genre.

15. The Call of Cthulhu

"While sorting the affairs of his late Uncle, a man accidentally stumbles across a series of dark secrets connected to an ancient horror waiting to be freed."
This was fantastic, in my opinion. I said before, I like black and white, silent movies. This took a very popular Lovecraft story and turned it into what looked like a silent straight out of Lovecraft's own time, when in fact, this was released in 2005.  It's not scream-worthy or anything like that, but it is a story that I love, and the filmmakers did a great job with this. My 13 year old watched this too, and she thought it was cool. High praise, that. But if you don't like silents, you won't like this. There's no awesome special effects...they tried on purpose to make this look like it came out of the 1920s. That's why I loved it.

I know I will be watching some more soon, so I will be posting additional reviews before long. Happy horror watching until then!

Guess What I Found in My Boobs Today!

I know I cannot be the only person who has this problem- I am well-endowed in the chest area, (size DD) and so I have a built-in shelf. I also prefer scoop-neck shirts. They look better on me. So anything that gets dropped near my head will inevitably end up in my bra. I am also clumsy, so the odds that I am going to drop something in there are increased exponentially. And since my mouth is the thing directly above the cleavage, it's usually food that ends up in there.

Sigh.

I have come home from movies to find popcorn in my bra.
Cookie crumbs? Oh yeah.
Condiments of all types.
Small items like earring backs. Yep. They love to fall in there.

My husband teases me about it all the time. In fact, he thinks it is hilarious. Sometimes the reason I find popcorn in my bra is because he threw it in there when I wasn't looking. Sometimes he misses and hits me in the face. Awesome.

But today. Today was a new low.

I had eggs over-medium for breakfast.

Source

Yeah. And it wasn't like just a little drip fell in there. Most of a forkful of delicious, but oh-so-runny egg yolk went right into my cleavage and pooled into the bottom of my bra. Fortunately, there was no one present to witness my hysterical reaction to the gooey mess. But, you can assume it involved a fair amount of screaming, cursing and running for a change of clothes.

Sigh.

I wonder if they make fashionable bibs for adult women.

Creepy Kids

I have seen a couple of internet posts recently, discussing the creepiest things that kids say. Wow. Some of these entries are terrifying, and some are downright hilarious.

I added a few of my own, over at Single Dad Laughing, and there is also a Reddit post that has tons of these comments. And of course, this got me thinking about every little scary or hilarious thing my kid has ever said. And then I started remembering stories I've heard from family, and well...some of this stuff is great, so I thought I'd share.

The Scary:

One night, my daughter had a nightmare. I ran in to check on her, and she was terrified. I asked her to tell me about her dream, and she said that she had thought that she woke up, and saw a black shadow at the head of her bed. When she turned her head to look straight up at it, she said it had red eyes, and it whispered, "I see you."

Another time she had a similar dream 3 nights in a row. In the first one, she said a woman had been standing in her room. I asked her to describe the woman, and she said she had dark hair, and she was wearing a black dress with a high collar. She said it was a very old-fashioned dress. The second night, she told me that the woman had been standing in the same spot in her room, but then the room turned into a field. On the third night, the woman was back in the field, and this time she was pointing toward a farmhouse. She said she was certain that the woman was dead, and was trying to tell her something. I wondered if an ancestor was trying to make contact. Who knows?

My grandmother tells a story often about my mom and uncle. They used to sleepwalk. She says when they did this, they would often talk in gibberish, as they were walking. On several occasions, she swears they both sleepwalked at the same time, and would go into the utility room and talk gibberish at each other. She said it gave her goosebumps to watch them talking like that in their sleep.

 artist

My sister also sleepwalked on occasion, and talked in her sleep too. What was even more creepy, was when she would just sit straight up in bed, and stare into the room as if hypnotized. Then she'd mutter some gibberish, and lay back down as if nothing just happened. I had to share a room with her, up until I was 13. Yikes!

The Funny:

Well, this one is a good transition, because it was funny and creepy. When my daughter turned 6, we went up to visit her grandpa in South Carolina for her birthday. He went out to the Piggly Wiggly, and bought her a cake. The cake had the pig logo in icing on the top of it. We sang happy birthday, she blew out the candles, and my father-in-law handed my daughter the cake slicer and said, "Here kiddo, you can cut the cake."  She immediately plunged the knife down into the center of the pig's face and shouted, "Kill the pig!!" Then laughed maniacally.

When she was about three, she was fascinated with dinosaurs. I explained to her how all of the dinosaurs had died out, and so they were now extinct. Later, she was talking to her grandmother on the phone and I said to her, "Tell Grandma what you learned about dinosaurs!" She said, "Grandma, all the dinosaurs stinked so bad that they died!" Extinct=stinked, apparently.

When she was about 8, she gave me the Vulcan hand gesture and told me to "Live long and possibly."

At the pool, she threatened my friend, saying "I have a pool noodle and I don't know how to use it." Um, that's "I'm not afraid to use it," sweetie.Threats are a lot less potent when you don't get that one right.

And my personal favorite, she just made up songs all of the time. About, things like, singing songs. Because we are the singers, the best.

And lastly, in both the creepy and funny columns, there is the series of photos my daughter took with the negative function on the camera.

At first, she was content to just make faces, but then she got an idea.

Zombie Barbies are here for your soul!!!!

More Ancestry Excitement

I have been doing some work every week on all of my various family lines. I'm slowly trying to fill them all in- at least to get back to the first immigrant to America, if I can, and further back if possible. What I've found is that my family, on almost all lines has been in this country for a very, very long time. Most of them were here before the Revolutionary War, and some of the lines were from the very earliest European settlers to this country.

As such, it is not surprising that many of my lines trace back to the East Coast. I had long known that on the Barnard side of my family, we descend from Colonel Jonathan Buck, the founder of Bucksport, Maine. I later learned that the Buck family had come from Massachusetts before they settled in Maine. The Buck line had married into the Darling family, and the Darling family later married into the Barnard family. And so, one section of my family tree is full of Bucks, Barnards, and Darlings. I had a pretty fair amount of information about the Barnards and Bucks, but I had just begun to research the Darlings. So, I sat down to try and discover more about them. Boy, was I in for a surprise.

My G-G Grandparents, Bertha Elna (Wilkey) and Henry Knotts Barnard

Henry Barnard's grandmother was Julia Cobb Darling who married Enoch Barnard. Her father was Henry Darling, who married Eliza Cobb. Henry Darling's father was Eliakim Darling who married Ruth Buck.

After Eliakim Darling, for some time, I was confused. Some information had an Eliakim Darling Senior as his father, and some had a Thomas. It took me a while of digging around, but I've come to the conclusion that they are the same person. The records that name Eliakim Senior, and the records that name Thomas both say that he was married to Martha Howe, and that his son was the Eliakim who married Ruth Buck. And they all agreed on who his parents were. So, although I still don't know for certain which is his first name, I know I have the right man. Maybe he was Eliakim Thomas Darling. Who knows?

Anyway, once I'd made sure that he was my man, I could add his parental info to my tree. His parents were Jonathan Darling and Sarah Wardwell. This is where it got really interesting.

Sarah Wardwell was the daughter of William Wardwell, of Salem Massachusetts. William Wardwell was the son of Samuel Wardwell and Sarah Hooper, of Salem.

If you remember any of your history lessons on the Salem witch trials, those names might mean something to you.

Samuel Wardwell was one of the 19 accused, convicted and hanged for being a witch.
His wife, Sarah was also accused, but later released.

Samuel, himself, might have been spared the gallows, but he retracted his confession.

One of the (many) strange things about the Salem Witch Trials, is that the people who refused to admit to witchcraft were tried, convicted and punished. People who confessed were sent back to prison, many of whom avoided the death penalty because they were able to "wait out" all of the insanity. Samuel confessed, but recanted, and was held up to all as an example of what happened to those who tried to change their testimony after admitting to being a witch. No other person who confessed was hanged, save Samuel.

Samuel is also unique in that he actually is believed to have dabbled in some fortune telling. The other "witches" seem to have had no actual part in anything even remotely like sorcery, but it seems to be widely accepted that Samuel had often read fortunes as a bit of entertainment. Certainly, we know now that doing a palm reading, or looking at tarot cards, does not mean someone is "in league with the devil," but to the Puritans, it might have been too much evidence to overlook. Certainly, when Samuel recanted and said that he was not a servant of Satan, and he had not hurt the girls in any way, his pleas fell on deaf ears. Instead, they made an example of him.

To me, this is all just a shock. I never would have guessed, when I started researching my ancestry, that it would lead to so many fascinating discoveries. I mean- I learned about this in history books, read Samuel's name...never knowing that this was my 10th Great Grandfather. I did always have a morbid curiosity about the witch trials, but I can't attribute that to my lineage. I think a lot of people feel the same way. It was a horrible and horrifying part of early American life. But, if I have to be connected to this, I think I am glad it was through one of the people who were accused. They were innocent. The people who did the accusing, who did the hanging...those people were guilty of and accomplices to murder. I think if I had to face the knowledge of that, it would be a much worse feeling. Now, someday I hope to go to Salem and actually see his memorial- bring a flower for my innocent ancestor who was the victim of religious hysteria.

You can read more about Samuel Wardwell all over the internet. Here are some good links.
Read all about the Salem Witch Trials here at Project Gutenberg.
This link takes you to the Salem Witchcraft Papers, regarding Samuel Wardwell, then click on the links within to read the individual documents.
And his bio is here, click on the plus sign, next to "Full Essay" to read all of it.

Looking for Isabelle

My mother always told me we were part Native American- specifically, Cherokee. 

I honestly wasn't sure about that...there are lots of people who say things like that, and she didn't know many specifics. The family member was on my great-grandfather's side, she couldn't remember how far back, but she was pretty sure my great grandparents knew that person, so not very far back. 

Hmmmm.

I started doing research last year on ancestry.com, and as I was discovering the names of family members I had never known, I found my great-grandfather's line. No one had a name that sounded Native American to me. We had Floyds, Flynns, Hudsons, Carmichaels, Fergusons, Bakers, Naughts...they all sounded pretty European to me.

I started to think my family connection might be a myth.

But then I went home for a visit, and made a point of going to my grandmother's house and talking to her about everything she knew first hand. She also had many pictures in an old trunk that I had never seen. One of these, was a picture of Isabelle (Hudson) Carmichael.

"Mary Margaret Floyd's mother- Max's Grandmother Carmichael. Her husband-Riley Carmichael"

This was my Great-Grandfather's Grandmother. So yes, he would have known her. In fact, I have a picture of her with my Great-Grandma, and my Grandma as a toddler.

 G-Grandma Julia, G-G-G-Grandma Isabelle, and baby Janet

Apparently, this is the person who said she was full blood Cherokee. And to look at her, I can't say she's not.
But then, why is her maiden name Hudson?

She appears to have been born to a David and Charlotte Hudson, in Greene County, Indiana. She married Reuben Riley Carmichael in 1879. Her race is listed in the census as "white." She had 7 children, but by the 1900 census, only 3 are listed as living.

Her parents are a complete mystery to me. In the 1880 census, Isabelle lists her parents as being both from North Carolina. The 1900 census states that her father was born in Kentucky. No mention of her mother is in that census. By 1910, her parents are now both born in Indiana. The 1920 census believes that her father was born in Tennessee, and her mother in Missouri. The 1930 census just lists parents' birthplace as "United States." And that is about as much as I actually know- they were born in this country.
David and Charlotte Hudson had a lot of children: Lankston, Mary, Jeremiah, Rachel, Nancy, William, Sarah, Isabelle, Elizabeth, Samuel, and Margaret. These are the ones that show up in census records, anyway.

Charlotte's maiden name may have been Lewis, but only some other family trees point to that. There are no birth records or cemetery records that I have uncovered so far. So I can't be sure of that fact.
There are some folks out there who list David's father as either Richard or William Hudson, his mother could be either: Rebecca Bowling, Ann Spiers, or Martha Fullwood. I have no way currently, to know which is correct.

Everything I am seeing so far does nothing to prove any Native American connection. However, it doesn't necessarily disprove it either. I have found many "Hudsons" searching for Cherokee ancestors online. Maybe this is a name some took? Or does the heritage come through her mother- the woman about whom, I have no records?

So I am hoping maybe someone who KNOWS will see this. I am looking for any information on the Hudson family. Is there a Cherokee connection? Or was that just a story? Either way, I would love to know WHO they were and where they came from. So please leave me a comment here if you have a piece of the puzzle. Or connect with me on Twitter- @SkyRhino.

Biscuits and Bigotry

The Paula Deen story has been all over the news.
You can read about it, and read Deen's deposition here.
I found it not one teensy eensy bit surprising at all.
In a way, I almost feel sorry for her.

Lemme esplain....no there is too much, lemme sum up. :)

 Ok. Paula Deen is an icon. She is the unofficial queen of Southern cooking- an ambassador for her region, if you will. She comes off as that sweet old grandma type that invites you into her kitchen, makes you a sandwich, and a big old glass of sweet tea, and then sits and gabs with you on the front porch rockers while you eat. And this image that she was selling, along with her food and cookbooks, has made her a lot of money. But this was a brightly colored illustration of "Southern life." It was a dream that many Southerners want you to believe- that its a place of fireflies in the evening, of old white columned estates with ivy growing up the sides, of simple people who are generous and kind and maybe just a little sassy. How charming. How idyllic.

The problem is that like any sweeping generalization of an entire group of people, it is inaccurate. Sure there are fireflies and grand old estates, and there are people who embody that sweet stereotype of  a Southern lady or gentleman. But there are other, less friendly stereotypes about Southerners too, and Paula Deen's slip-ups have served only to reaffirm those ideas for people who are not from that region.

I lived in Georgia for four years. I lived in a small town, near the Florida border. It's about 90 miles from Albany, where Paula Deen is from. There were some very good people there. However, there are also some people who are die-hard racists. They are unapologetic about their views too. This was a heck of a shock for me, having moved there from the Midwest. Don't get me wrong, there is racism in "America's Heartlands" too, but I had never encountered it in such an in-your-face fashion.
Let me give you some examples:
 -My daughter came home from preschool one day, and asked me what a "toilet-n****r" was. I had to pick my chin up off of the floor. When I asked her where in the world she had heard such a thing, she told me a little girl at school had called another child that. Now, I grew up and went to preschool and up to high school in the Midwest, and I had never heard anyone utter the "n word" as an insult, let alone add "toilet" onto it. How appalling! And from a four year old!
-I started working at a restaurant, and was told by a black woman that worked there, "Don't bother talking to me. I hate white people." I was really taken aback by that, and I asked her why. She told me she had never met a nice one. Despite her initial misgivings about me, she eventually decided I was actually ok, and she told me more about the things she had been called growing up, and the things that white people had done to her. I was shocked at how many incidents she'd had to endure in just 20 something years.
-Even as a white woman, I was called a "Yankee" on several occasions. I was also told to "go back where I came from" simply because my accent was different.
And that's just a little sampling of things that I experienced in just four years.
And as of this point in my life, I have lived in six different states- spanning from the Midwest, to the South, to the West Coast to the Southwest.  But only in Georgia have I had experiences like that.

So when Paula Deen says that she honestly never meant to hurt anyone, and that she didn't know that what she had done was wrong, I believe her. Why would she think there was anything wrong with the jokes and the use of derogatory racial slurs? Why would she not find the idea of a plantation wedding, complete with all black servants tending to the guests, anything but charming? To her, this is just a Gone With the Wind romance. What I am saying is that, while racism is everywhere, in the South, it is ever-present and acceptable in many circles. Paula Deen is exactly a stereotype of what the South is believed to be, and unfortunately in many ways, what it still is. That's a shame for her, because it has cost her her contracts with Food Network, and now with Smithfield Foods. But it isn't surprising that she has racist views. Not to me, anyway, and probably not to a lot of minorities who live in the South. This is why many of them "hate white people." Because they have dealt with people like Paula all of their lives. Sure the white lady seems nice, but then you find out she has been calling you the "bun that stayed in the oven too long." And she doesn't even think that is cruel, she thinks she's just being cute.
Paula Deen, in an interview from last year, illustrated this perfectly. She even referred to her great-grandfather's slaves as his "workers." It is clear that she does not even begin to grasp how offensive she can be.

So yeah, in a weird way, I do feel sorry for her. She is a product of her time and her place. And her views are on the way out. Her jokes are socially unacceptable in the rest of the country. She just didn't know that because she is surrounded by people who haven't figured it out yet.

Racism isn't part of the charm of the South. It is the thing that holds you back. It is the reason why Paula Deen couldn't hack it on a wider platform for long. The cracks began to show, the truth behind that smile started to come through. Those biscuits come with a side of gravy and bigotry. And for most of the nation, that sours our appetite.

Mom, My Feet Are Melting...

As I have said before, I live in Tucson. It's kind of a desert. Ok, it is a desert. So, it's hot.
It's hot, it's June, the kids are out of school, and you want to do things with them, but it's the least pleasant part of the whole year here. Well, as it turns out, I do happen to have found a few things that are a lot of fun, and not outside in the scorching heat.

1. Tour something underground.
Underground the temperature stays in the 70s. It just so happens that we have a couple of places like this in the Tucson area.
One is Colossal Cave.

This is a lot of fun, especially if you have kids that enjoy nature, hikes, or learning about history. Make sure you wear comfortable shoes- no heels or even flip flops. It is easy to stub a toe in there. The tour goes about a half of a mile, with 363 steps (stairs), and tight spaces that you have to turn sideways to squeeze by (if you are a large adult). It is dark, but you will have a tour guide with a flashlight and there are lights along the path. No special equipment is necessary. This is a fairly easy walk, but know that you can't take a stroller inside. There isn't room, or ramps for that sort of thing. It is a cave. This is a good trip for older kids, or toddlers that don't get too fussy when they are expected to walk.

Another underground activity is visiting the Titan Missile Museum.

This is probably a good trip for middle-schoolers to high-schoolers. Again, you will have a tour guide. You watch a movie explaining the silo and some of its history, and then your guide takes you through the silo. You see where the people worked and the guide explains everything about the Cold War and why this was built. You can "turn the key and send the bomb" (pretend, of course...but they do a good job of driving home the impact of what that would have meant, if it had ever happened). And, of course, you can actually see a Titan Missile. It is big. What else can I say? That's a big, dang rocket. Kids who love science or history will get a kick out of all of this. My little nerdling (13 year old) had a good time.

 2. Do something up in the mountains.
This is the time of year when I like to find reasons to drive up to Mount Lemmon. It can be just for a picnic, or sometimes we go up to Rose Canyon lake, and do some fishing.

Often, since my family hikes, we go up to do a trail. My recommendation for that is to research each trail before you go to find out how difficult it is, how long it is, etc. - to see if it is right for your family. There are some nice, easy trails, but there are also some that are not for small kids or people who are out of shape. (That includes me) Here is a site that lists many of the trails, and has descriptions of them.

3. Find something artsy to do.
There are a good amount of art-themed activities in the Tucson area. I'm just going to mention two of the ones I am familiar with.

Color Me Mine- paint pottery, and then they will fire and glaze it for you. Pick up your creations in about a week.
And Creative Juices- paint a work of art in acrylics on canvas, and take it home that day! An artist walks you through the painting of the day, or you can just do your own thing. If you look on their site, under class schedules, there is a section for kids workshops. Also if you are looking for something for just mommy or daddy and some friends to do, the adult classes are fun and they serve wine and beer for those.  ;)

4. Do something after dark.

The Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum has "Summer Saturday Nights", and I've gone up for this a couple of times now. It is a lot of fun, you can watch the sunset over Tucson Mountain Park, see some of the wildlife at the museum, go visit the new aquarium exhibit, and see special programs just for the night.

The last time I went, there were telescopes out to view the stars, geologists discussing phosphorescence, biologists talking about the bats flying over our heads, and entomologists showing specimens of the various desert  insects. Great for kids of all ages. Wear comfortable shoes, bring a water bottle, and a camera, and do bring sunscreen for the few hours before the sun goes down.

And speaking of the Sonora Desert Museum, they have a Bat Bridge Discovery program I have been meaning to go to. Every Thursday, at dusk there are docents from the museum out to talk about the bats, and then you watch as hundreds of them emerge from the bridge to begin their nightly feedings. Cool. I have GOT to go do this.

Another program I have NOT done yet, is the Pima Air and Space Museum's Night Wings.  They open up from 5:00 to 9:00, to let you enjoy the museum at a more reasonable temperature. But only on certain evenings, so plan ahead.  It looks like these are scheduled for June 22nd, July 27th, and  August 24th. Sounds intriguing.

Well, folks, whatever your summer plans- stay cool, stay hydrated, and have fun!

All pictures in this post were taken by me, at the locations indicated.