Mount Lemmon: A Scenic Drive to Arizona's Secret Town | Arizona Highways TV
[Music] what do me just play [Music] it there we go [Music] for a change of latitude we're taking an Arizona highway up by driving South not enough people know about this story join us as we experience Four Seasons in just one trip and yes that is snow you see covering the ground plus a town known for its homemade pie and fresh made fudge well we are just eating this place right there's great shops antiques there's friendly people it's a very close-knit community that loves having visitors you know they they really appreciate tourists coming up there and and exploring their neighborhoods and they have great homemade food you know conversation it's good people and good fun up there and no question is off limits for this skygazer yeah no no aliens no aliens yeah you can get me on tape no aliens we're with the world's leading astrophotographer follow us for a tour of Mount Lemon Sky Center and explore the universe like you've never seen [Music] before hi everyone I'm Robin Su we have discovered one of Arizona's Best Kept Secrets come along with us on this Scenic Highway where the views are equivalent to driving from Canada to Mexico in just 27 miles and once you reach your destination you'll discover a qu Town bursting with cooler temps and lots of things to do that you'll wonder why you have never before been to Summer Haven the Catalina highway is one of the best most scenic drives in Arizona um because of its biodiversity it's the equivalent of driving from Mexico to Canada from the aid desert landscape of Tucson to a mountainous Shady Forest it is a 25m stretch of highway way into the catalinas known as the sky island Scenic byway your adventure begins in the lower Sonoran region and takes you into the high elevation of the Canadian Zoom I don't think arizonans realized how much biodiversity is on the Catalina Highway and how quick of a drive it really is you can make the drive within a short half hour or stop at Lookout points along the way it is truly one of the most scenic highways in the southwest that you just can't help but but pull over and enjoy the view so it's 25 miles of different campsites Trails there's Canyons you can go into there's a lot of really cool um Scenic overlooks that you can look down into these beautiful cascading valleys as you Journey up the hill leaving Cactus and boulders behind you'll enter the Ponderosa Pine Forest followed by a mixed Conifer Forest The Climb takes you to nearly 9,000 ft where the change in vegetation and temperature is dramatic there's skiing and pine trees and it's sometimes up to 30° cooler than down in Tucson so you get quite a range of temperature and terrain and Landscape all in a day drive on one of the only paved roads leading to the top of Mount Lemon the word about this unique Trek is out especially with the road Racers it proves to be a challenging bike ride and if you make it you will have experienced Four Seasons in one short trip so what's greeting Travelers at the end of the road a welcome smile somebody who usually will know your name the small town of Summer Haven bursting with plenty of good food hey friends I got a spish dip right here yeah and it's a prime destination for outdoor enthusiasts this quaint Community is your perfect cool getaway way still to come play tourist with us as we explore the town of Summer Haven and get a few tips from the locals on how to be in the no check in at the General Store see what's going on the second place you check in at is the post office also stick around to uncover the secrets of our night sky and how these telescopes are being used remotely on an international level this telescope is available to be accessed by people around the world and you can control this telescope from anywhere Arizona highways TV is brought to you by APS making everyday Ridder and the Arizona office of Tourism we've just explored one of the most scenic highways in the southwest so what's at the end of the road get ready to discover with a cute town of Summer Haven with a General Store gift shop homemade pie and cookies I'm already in love summer Haven is one square mile of private land that is surrounded by National Forest the main draw is that in the summer we're about 20 to 30° cooler than Tucson you can sit on your front porch and hear nothing but silence there's an occasional car that'll um pass by and it's usually going to be somebody that we know Carol Mack owns Summer Haven General Store by day and is a volunteer firefighter by night with only 35 year- Round residents you can say that she and her husband Phil know pretty much everybody sometimes more than you want to they're all nuts I think it's the altitude of gets them but they're they're great people it's a very close Community Bob Zimmerman doubles as a realtor restaurant owner and is considered the town's unofficial mayor I don't know where this idea got going but it did while it's a peaceful Retreat for visitors looking to escape the summer heat this close-nit community is simply called home to its full-time and part-time residents mostly the hangout is during the day check in at the general eneral store see what's going on the second place you check in at is the post office you get filled in with what's going on with anybody who's going somewhere who's not feeling well you know who needs a pot of chicken soup or whatever this community became even closer when the town pulled together after the 2003 Aspen fire it was very heartwarming and it kind of set a basis for us to move forward and rebuilding although 10 years later you can still see fire damage to the forest folks here have been busy restoring their faith their fortitude and their small town there literally was nothing on this Main Street we just L this place so dearly that we said let's [Music] rebuild as the rebuild continues shops and restaurants are open for business in summer Haven the goal helping tourists enjoy The Simple Pleasures of a tasty life we have so many repeat customers for our fudge and we get to welcome them back year after year Carol Max General Store and gift shop fudge made fresh and daily is their specialty we have a plethora of flavors 25 flavors to be exact we have exotic things like hot aeno fudge or um chewy praline cappucino just all kinds of fun stuff we then head down the hill to discover a fun store called The Living rainbow with its dangling Windchimes and crystals this shop is all about art and color and boy all this window shopping can really work of an appetite good thing the cookie cabin is right next door pretty good stuff piping hot pizzas on on the menu here but what they're really known for is their cobbler and giant siiz cookies served Up paperplate Style some just want to get out of town and and see the forest and their outdoor experiences driving up here and stopping in some place and have a cup of coffee or a piece of pie or something and going back to Tucson did somebody say pie the pies are there we got them and people like them we head over to the Sawmill run restaurant and now while they're known for their pies you will find good oldfashioned mountain food on this menu hope you're hungry hey friends I got a spish dip right here yeah The Sawmill run is the town's newest hangout and with its cozy atmosphere and down home cooking visitors will definitely eat drink and have some fun [Music] I'm rooster cogran you're at the rooster Cogan ostrich Ranch along I 10 just before you hit Tucson you'll see the signs for rooster cogburn's ostrich Ranch first of all I just want you to see all these youngsters down the fence here this is what this is really about it's just a family attraction we are lots of nice families to travel up down this highway a lot of them stop every time they go through there you go get after it the main attraction of course are the big birds but rooster himself is a close [Music] second now if you want to feed him out of your hand you do it one at a time down low raise your hand low raise your hand low raise your hand they have 57 bird bra in that neck if you want to pet them you pet them just like that they can bend that neck in a complete circle and what we're going to do now is we're going to go right back in the pin with these birds we lost two people from a television crew a year ago they got them down and ate them these are South African black they're a domesticated ostrich from South Africa well this is the largest clock of South African black commercial ostriches anywhere in the world outside of South Africa they're right here on the rooster kog BOS tra in Arizona along with the ostriches rooster has managed to collect some deer walk right up there to hand feed girls show them how to do it Laura these birds are from Australia and they're brush tongue parrots they eat Nector they do not eat bugs they eat constantly and the tiniest little beasts of Burden you'll ever see these little donkeys are from Sicily there's only about 10,000 of them in the United States we got about 14 head here fresh Reds here they go Brewster's daughter Dana helps run the ranch and she has added a creature of her own to the attractions [Music] there sorry guys I forgot I had people on here I had NASCAR dreams last night so it's a monster truck designed to add some fun to the ostrich Ranch tour we accidentally stumbled on this traveling a tucon they just stop stop by looks pretty cool that was about 2 years ago and kids loved it so now each year once twice a year we come out it's great a lot of people drive right past Rooster's place but for those who stop it is an experience they won't soon [Music] forget coming up next come get a view of the cosmos with us from on top of Mount Lemon we we take a peek through Arizona's largest dedicated public telescope it is a sight to behold and we can't wait to share it with you stick around our mission here as part of the sky Center is to give access to the universe in a way in which most people don't usually have an opportunity Arizona highways TV is brought to you by APS making everyday brighter and the Arizona office of tourism one of the highlights of our trip to Summer Haven was getting front row seats to the Mount Lemon Sky Center at over 9,000 ft above sea level this is a professional observing site with some of the largest telescopes available to the public however the best part at this Observatory you become the astronomer they are some of the most beautiful and famous pictures ever taken of the universe the horse head nebula everyone knows it's so famous it's kind of like the Grand Canyon of the night sky far away galaxies and distant nebula so colorful and truly amazing it is hard to believe they're even real this one is called the fireworks Galaxy and the nebula is known as the Flaming star these clouds of gas from which stars form glow uh and they allow us to see all the detail in the the structure of the gas and the dust that is embedded within it Adam block is a world-renowned asttr photographer whose images have been published all over the world and regularly on NASA's website it's very exciting for me so it allows me to extend my ability to share and Inspire in science and astronomy after studying astronomy and physics at the University of Arizona Adam helped create the Mount Lemon Sky Center featuring Arizona's largest dedicated public telescope in fact through this telescope people have a chance to see things that most of humanity have never really been afforded the opportunity unless you can get your hands on a bigger telescope and plop it down at a better sight this is as good as it gets as far as seeing the universe located on Mount Lemon near the town of Summer Haven this Observatory offers International and remote access to people around the globe you can control this telescope from anywhere so people can log on using specialized software to see what the telescope is doing it also offers nightly programs where visitors can become an astronomer for the day viewing the wonders of the cosmos from constellations to atmospheric phenomena this particular telescope it's called the shulan telescope is specially designed not only to get a good view through but to take pictures with you can see to the furthest reaches of the universe very far away galaxies quazars or things that are nearby planets within our own solar system asteroids and many others this telescope which contains two mirrors one of which is 32 in is specifically designed to reflect light capturing some of the most interesting images ones you can say are out of this world all telescopes can see the universe out there but the larger your mirror the more light you collect and for us that means the more light we can put on our eyeballs the better we see things it also means that this telescope makes for better photography when it's something that I haven't taken a picture of before for me that's a form of discovery of exploration of the Universe I just couldn't imagine doing anything else the study of the universe is just one of those fundamental built in I think desires that everyone has IT addresses the ultimate questions of where we've come from in terms of the origins of the universe and how things might proceed from here gazing at the universe through Adam blocks photography does bring about our innermost curiosity we wondered how space images are actually captured they almost seem too beautiful to be true coming up next find out how close to reality these images really are our eyes in general are not sensitive enough to perceive very many colors through even the largest telescopes of the world these instruments that astronomers use are much more sensitive and far more appropriate for analyzing the light of the telescope collects to make these pretty pictures Arizona highways TV is brought to you by APS making everyday brighter and the Arizona office of Tourism subscribe to Arizona highways magazine one full year 12 issues is just $18 that's $6 less than the regular price visit arizonahighways.com click on subscribe and use promo code [Music] special pull up to the Los Ventana Canyon Resort on a motor scooter or in a sedan and you will notice how the beautiful Resort Blends in seamlessly with its desert surroundings L's Ventana impl mented green policies when they built the resort and even now they continue to run their hotel based on a green Foundation designed to preserve the environment set against the breathtaking backdrop of the Santa Catalina mountains the Ford Diamond Resort is one of Ton's pride and joys it's been rated one of the world's top hotels according to travel and Leisure magazine and it is in fact one of the top 500 hotels in the world and that's your Arizona postcard from Tucson's L's Ventana Canyon [Music] Resort this is the Mount Lemon Sky Center and it features the largest dedicated public telescope that people can get a chance to walk up to and take a look through with their own eyes we just toured you through the Mount Lemon Sky Center which is part of the University of Arizona's Steward observatory near the town of Summer Haven we were so fascinated by the incred rible images from renowned astrophotographer Adam block we just had to find out how he does it the camera that I use to acquire images through this telescope detects the same wavelengths of light colors that we see with our eyes so in that sense whatever the colors are that show up in the picture I don't choose if something is red or blue or yellow however our eyes in general are not sensitive enough to perceive very many colors through even the largest telescope opes of the world these instruments that astronomers use are much more sensitive and far more appropriate for analyzing the light that the telescope collects to make these pretty pictures these images here are not enhanced or touched up in any way in fact these pretty pictures are captured through the instrument's lens Adam says these large telescopes analyze light and are extremely sensitive to the many colors of the universe much more sensitive than our eyes so in pictures that I generate they are the true colors if your eyes were as sensitive as the camera that I used and you could expose for as long that is approximately what you would see at Sky Center you can also see stars in the daytime Sky you can even observe the sun safely and the Sun is remarkable because every day it's doing something usually pretty uh spectacular Adam says one of the highlights for him is addressing misconceptions so when he tours a group he says no question is off limits people come to the program never having looked through a telescope or even really paid attention to a dark knight Sky they might not even have access to one living in a bright City when people look at the sky I know by the end of the program they can answer the question whether those Stars they see over their head are they in our galaxy or are they in any other that's a common question people want to know uh about the planets and they want to know about the phases of the moon they want to know uh about various things that impact their lives or maybe they don't and it's always just been a mystery to them I will tell you one of the hardest questions I've ever had to answer though was from a it's always the kids they come up with the questions that are really tough so one small boy he asked me the question what is space I don't even know where to begin with that that is a very difficult question to answer in a sentence or [Music] two if you've never seen Arizona's star Skies like this before or experien these Santa catalinas and Mount Lemon quite like this don't worry you're not alone but hey now is your chance so the next time we hit Arizona's scenic highways and byways we hope we'll meet you on the road thanks everyone so much for joining us I'm Robin Su and we'll see you on the next Arizona highways
2024-09-29 20:44
