Mark’s birthday

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Traditionally, we have gone to Tombstone for Mark’s birthday, but yesterday (Friday the 14th) the weather was unseasonably cold. The report said it would be snowy in Tombstone, so we decided to do some indoor things here in Tucson. I put together a treasure map for Mark.

I had registered in advance for tickets to see The Unbreakable Boy at our local AMC and we got there at 10:15, but the theater was locked and no one was inside. I looked more closely at my registration and realized that the tickets were for 10:15 PM, not AM. Who shows a movie at 10:15 at night anyway?

So we went back home and waited for lunchtime. Then I took Mark to Wok and Roll, a Chinese buffet. They give you a percentage off based on your age, so Mark got a 71% discount and I got the 10% seniors discount. That was the least expensive lunch we’ve had in a while!

Lunch at Wok and Roll

I didn’t tell Mark where we were going next, but I turned on my GPS and had him follow the directions. Towards the end, we were on a dirt road in the middle of a residential area and I began to doubt that GPS had us going in the right direction or that the place was even still there but within half a block, we found a small sign for the Franklin Auto Museum. Mark got excited when he saw that! It was a funky little place with all sorts of buildings and it wasn’t exactly indoors. I had envisioned something a bit grander! We had a tour guide who started taking us around to four of the little buildings.

This Franklin was built in 1905. There’s a back seat that could only be entered by a little door that was built into the seat back.
This truck was built by Franklin in 1908, but he only made trucks for two years. You can clearly see in this picture that he built it European style with the driver’s wheel on the right side of the vehicle. He did that in the first picture too.
1910 was when Franklin first started putting a canopy over the top of the car. It still has a right-sided steering wheel. This is probably the easiest example to see of how he built his cars out of wood and aluminum. They were more light and easier to maneuver than other cars of the day.
This was a model built preceding the manufacture of the 1921 Model Z. It’s fully enclosed, and it’s steered from the left side as American cars are today.
By 1930, the cars were more like what we are familiar with.
A 1931 Speedster, which was capable of going 65 miles per hour. This was unheard of back in the day!
By 1934, Franklin cars were beginning to go out of business. HH Franklin was a friend of Henry Ford’s and he had admired this grill that Ford had created. Ford told him he could use it on his cars instead. After Franklin finally went out of business, Ford provided him with the Ford of his choice every two years for the rest of his life!
I don’t remember what year this car was, but there was a time when Franklin realized more people were buying his cars in Europe than in America. He sent a couple of his cars to a London competition, and you can see that this car won a ribbon there.
After Franklin’s car business tanked, he realized that his engines would be perfect for airplanes, which were a new thing.
Another thing he tried to get into was motorized bicycles. I bet you thought that that is a current invention, didn’t you?
The guide offered to take our picture in front of whichever was Mark’s favorite car. This was it!

We went home for a while and saw to it that Tucson was pottied and fed, and then I let GPS guide Mark to where I had dinner reservations at Charro Vida. It’s one of our favorite places but we haven’t been there yet this time.

This place does a great mix of vegan meals and carnivorous meals so it works for both of us.

They also gave Mark a free choice of desserts for his birthday and he chose oatmeal ice cream. He was pleasantly surprised that it didn’t taste like oatmeal. It tasted like vanilla ice cream and he didn’t have to take any Lactaid with it.

After dinner, we had a few hours to wait for the movie, so we tried to lay down for a bit of a nap because the movie started so late.

This was us at midnight after the movie was over.

The Unbreakable Boy is uplifting. It’s about a boy who has a rare bone disease that makes his bones brittle and easy to break. He is also autistic, but he has an indomitable spirit. The movie is based on a true story, and at the end, they showed pictures of the family members and told a bit about where they’re at now. Both Mark and I enjoyed it and would recommend it to you.

Related posts:

  1. Birthday in Tombstone
  2. Happy birthday, Kader!
  3. Happy birthday, Mark!
  4. Dad’s birthday

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