On Walkabout in Tucson

This morning we were up and out for a follow up appointment at my doctor's office.  She's pretty far north, so we had planned to take our hiking stuff and go on out to the Tortolitas afterwards.  Unfortunately, someone (who shall remain nameless) forgot his hiking shirt.  So, we came home.  It was still surprisingly chilly.
We decided to take the new Modern Streetcar into downtown so we could walk around.  We parked at the Mercado Agustin to get on the streetcar.  Look at this picture of Jim.  He's wearing a jacket.  This never happens. 
 

We saw this on the ground downtown.  I'm not sure if he was dead or just cold.  Hopefully no one will step on him.

The Tucson Center for the Performing Arts started off life as a church.  It's been closed since 1999 due to structural issues.  The downtown arts community would love to see it reopened, but it will require a large application of money.  It's a really pretty building.

Is this not a cheerful court yard?

This is some of my favorite neon.  Lawyers occupy the building now.  It would be nice if they'd getting it working again. 

We walked up to the U of A campus from downtown.  It was a pretty good hike.  We happily got back on the street car to return to the Mercado; but then there was this.  The street car route is basically an out and back, it's not a giant loop.  When someone rear ends the street car in front of your street car, all forward movement stops.  Apparently two or three cars were involved in a chain reaction, resulting in a rear ender.

The sedan with its doors open pushed the other car into the street car.

Yep, there was contact.

What we found interesting was that there were 8 or so transit guys standing around looking at all of this.  There were no police and no one seemed to be in a hurry to clear the vehicles off the tracks.  The street cars drive in the traffic lanes, so if there are stopped cars, they are stopped, too.  The nice driver suggested that we'd do better to start walking, so we did.  We got bonus miles!  That accident will bollox up the schedule for all of the street cars until they clear the area.  We felt bad for the large group of well dressed people waiting at the stop near the Mercado.