Mar 24 Thursday - Repairs start & we visit the Titan II ICBM missile museum

Mar 24 Thurs Day 66 sunny & warm, low 70’s

We got up early to get to Orangewood RV Center to get an estimate of time & cost of repairs. Spoke with the service manager Fred Brooks. They will have to research finding the filler pipe etc. Our old tire on the driver’s side is now going flat so Fred gave us the name of a RV tire repair shop, Jack Furriers Western Tire Centre, just up the street, and to ask for Roy. We went there while Fred looked for parts. The Tire Center fixed the spare; it was the valve stem that had gone letting air out, and started on the new tire mounting. Roy said that the tire valves for use with valve extenders should always be steel, never rubber, so I had them put in the steel ones. First I had ever heard that, but it makes sense. While they were doing that we went to a nearby WiFi coffee shop for breakfast. Back to Orangewood and left the RV for Fred and his RV technician to work on and said we’d be back mid afternoon to see how he was doing. As it was looking like a long job we had decided to just get the gas filler & water pump working & leave the compartment broken & open.
We went down to the Titan Missile museum. It was quite something, to look down the silo at the missile and to go into the underground workings & command centre was quite enlightening. The security when it was operational was amazing. They had a “no lone zone” in the control room and anywhere on the 8 levels ops crew or maintenance staff would be, which meant there always had to be two people together at any place doing anything, one to watch the other, no one could be on their own. Considering they had a 6 megaton nuclear weapon there, it seemed reasonable. The security procedure just to get in & out was also complex. The on duty crew was 4, 2 officers & 2 sergeants who did a 24 hour shift down in the silo. Getting the codes to fire the ICBM was also very complex. It was a very interesting tour to see a part of history that used to be super top secret & highly guarded. Of the 54 ICBM sites in the US they were in only 3 states, Arizona, Kansas, & Missouri. The 18 in AZ were in a ring around Tucson. Each one had 3 targets & the warhead was 6 megatons which is 600 times more powerful than WW II bombs dropped on Japan.
When we got back just before closing at 5PM they had almost finished and we have to take it in Fri morn for the last bit. They had finally found the required gas filler pipe by sending a man out to a truck wrecking yard & he got the proper original equipment gas filler pipe off a 2003 ford econoline van. Fred said they just had to do the whole job & fix the compartment that would have been open because it was a safety hazard and he couldn’t let us go out with unsafe conditions. It would have been open to the rear wheels throwing up water onto the 110 volt & 12 volt electrical connection which could cause shorts & a fire possibly, and it is close to the gas tank. We found a vacant lot nearby & parked the RV there. Just as we were leaving to go to the casino across town a pick up truck drove up. Turns out the vacant lot was part of his property with a business on it a half block away. WE explained the situation& he had no problem with us staying there. We took the car & the GPS for a trip to Casino of the Sun. The GPS proved itself again as the street signs were not light up so with out the GPS I wouldn’t have been able to see were to turn until I was into the intersection. We had buffet at Casino of the Sun then drove the ½ doz blocks to Casino del Sol for the entertainment in their lounge, no cover, no drink minimum.