Fake Cake Float #2 at Multiple Locations in Tucson, Arizona

The Rio Vista apartment complex off River Road where Uncle Dan used to live in the late 1970s (balcony in the background) seemed like a logical first location to try on Thursday afternoon. Trespassing was easy as we just walked right in, pulled the cake out in front of three sunbathers, and snapped some photographs.



"Incognito" doing the trick.



The cake as yellow as the desert sun.



Friday evening, Cass and I did a reconnaissance visiting two potential locations. The first was a former Ramada now Hotel Tucson. Last time Cass went swimming there, a view of A Mountain was visible but not today. The new hotel owners built another wing and the sunset wasn't even visible. It was a very easy pool to trespass though and we filed it away for future reference.



Next up... the Arizona Inn, the mother of all Tucson downtown resorts; the location I always wanted to see though never did when I lived here. We visited in the night, roaming around the croquet grounds, tennis courts, fountains and eventually the swimming pool. It was deemed THE location much like I thought it would be while dreaming of a cake float from Indiana.



We quickly learned that the best way to trespass in this location was to show up multiple times within 15 hours as if we really were staying there. We appeared again Saturday morning with the cake and tried the fountain...



then the pool.



Our big discovery: noodles work WELL for compositional placement and retrieval of the cake when you are wearing clothes and it begins to drift away.



The whitest person in Southern Arizona is having her cake and eating it too.



We also visited the Mid Valley Athletic Club where the Silver Sneakers were in the middle of their shallow aerobics class.



Then we went to El Charro for a slice of tres leches because we obviously needed cake after all these floats. Here is Cass holding up the fake cake in the patio fountain in the back of the restaurant.



THEN we decided to return to Arizona Inn and actually go swimming. It was packed with UA graduates and their families but perfect to swim nonetheless. David Hasselhoff was not spotted this trip (his daughter attends UA and he usually stays here).

Although I was fairly convinced that I had THE photograph from one of the above locations, Uncle Dan told me I had to visit the Hacienda del Sol, an old guest ranch in the foothills. According to the website, the swimming pool had a tiled bucking bronco on the bottom (long after this photograph was taken).



It was a charming location with one of the best cactus gardens I've seen this vacation.



I tried so hard to make a photograph work here but the water ripples obscured the tile underneath and the cake looked like it was sagging at the angle I took it (in reality the only woman on the other side of the pool was moving the water and it sunk one side in deeper than the other). There really is a cowboy and bucking bronco down there I promise! Poles work as well as noodles for compositional placement by the way.



...and so the end of the trip has arrived. Shockingly the sheer amount of trespassing we did aroused very little suspicion and I will come back to Indiana with one more cake crossed off the list. My two for May are complete! Three will occur during the month of June. Stay tuned.