Diary of the red bat

[Tucson FR-S]

My grandmother used to tell a joke: one day one the bus one grandmother happened to meet another and after talking for a while the first says to the second, “Have I shown you pictures of my grandchildren?” And the second one says, “No, thank you so much!”

Pictures of newly bought cars are a little like pictures of babies: to be honest, they all look pretty much the same. But everyone who has a new one wants to show the pictures, and a lot of people, maybe especially those who also have new ones, want to see the pictures.

Have I shown you pictures of my new car?

[jack43]

I've seen it in person on the street.. i am about 3 blocks away.

You've seen the blue BRZ in our hood as well? We should start the Eight Six Twinz gang LOL.

[Turbowned]

Good photos!

[Tucson FR-S]

Originally Posted by jack43

I've seen it in person on the street.. i am about 3 blocks away.

You've seen the blue BRZ in our hood as well? We should start the Eight Six Twinz gang LOL.

Three blocks! How come I've never see you? Actually, I've never seen another except at the dealership. (Maybe I need new contacts.)

[Tucson FR-S]

Originally Posted by Turbowned

Good photos!

Thanks. Taking pictures of shiny objects is not easy.

[Silverdub]

firestorm is the hottest, i love mine so much

[6-Shift]

Do a clay bar and get a coat of wax/sealant on that paint while it's still new and shiny!

[Tucson FR-S]

To get to know your car, take it on the road. And what could be better than a mountain highway?




Just north of Tucson, Mt. Lemmon rises 9157 feet, the highest point in the Catalina Mountains.




The road to the top is curvy without being too demanding, a great drive I figured for getting to know my car and for trying to keep it under 4K rpms. (Also good because I keep looking away from the road at the views.)






I love this drive – it starts in the Sonoran desert, transitions through scrub oaks, and ends in a lush alpine forest more than a mile higher than Tucson – and in the summer just 27 miles gets you out of the stifling heat.



A couple other people have written about driving this road (here and here). It’s generally wide and turns in swings rather than tight coils.



The county rebuilt the highway in the 1970s. The pioneering road, far less capacious (I’m told), was begun in the 1930s, and built by hand in part by federal prisoners living in a work camp on the mountain. (You’ll still pass a sign for Prison Camp Road.) During WWII, the camp held men who refused the draft and at least one American of Japanese descent, Gordon Hirabayashi, a student at the University of Washington who defied the curfew imposed on Japanese Americans and sued the federal government for violating his 5th amendment rights. (As it happens, George Will wrote a column just this week about Korematsu v. United States, in which the Court the next year upheld legality of forcibly relocating Americans to concentration camps. You should read it.) The Supreme Court ruled against him in 1943, and so he helped build the road I was driving on.



Every car has a history, so does every road.



(Sorry about the duplicate photos. I can’t figure out how to interlace them with the text without attaching them at the end – unless you use an external site, which I don’t have.)

[Khazzy]

I used to drive up Mt. Lemmon every saturday morning while the sun was rising. Such a great drive up and down. The Integra loved every bit of it too! Wish I was in Tucson still sometimes. Great pics!