Today is, miraculously, not quite the scorcher yesterday was. Even so, it is hot as all hell outside and you should get some ice cream. But from where?

Well, maybe from one of the five (or five of the five) local ice cream places Tucson has deemed the best.

We've just opened the second round of Best of Tucson voting. We tallied your votes from round one and came up with a list of finalists based on your input. 

You've got until July 31 to fill out your ballot, and you should absolutely spend some of that time taste testing the restaurants recommended in the Casual Dining, Restaurant and Cultura sections. 

The five finalists for Best Ice Cream are: Allegro Gelato, Cashew Cow, Frost Gelato, the HUB Ice Cream Factory and the Screamery. Report back when you're finished. 

Busy Friday? We're giving away one pair of tickets to see Sammy Hagar & The Circle at AVA Amphitheater. 

AVA has this to say about the show:

For almost forty years, Sammy Hagar has been one of rock music’s most dynamic and prolific artists. From breaking into the industry with the seminal hard rock band Montrose to his multiplatinum solo career to his ride as the front man of Van Halen, the “Red Rocker” has set the tone for some of the greatest rock anthems ever written with songs like “I Can’t Drive 55,” “Right Now,” and “Why Can’t This Be Love.” He’s earned the highest respect of the music industry with a Grammy Award and induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame alongside Van Halen and is currently on his fourth platinum run with the super group Chickenfoot. Along his journey, Hagar has also become a dedicated philanthropist, a New York Times best-selling author and auspicious entrepreneur.

...

Aside from making his mark as a hit songwriter and lead vocalist, Hagar has played with a succession of legendary guitar players; from Ronnie Montrose and Neal Schon to Eddie Van Halen and Joe Satriani and his current group, The Circle, which also features former Van Halen bassist Michael Anthony, Jason Bonham and Vic Johnson. 

The concert is this Friday, June 10 at 8 p.m. We'll pick a winner midday Wednesday, June 8. Good luck!

Grab the kids and head over to Tohono Chul Park every Tuesday this month to explore the desert. 

Explore, learn and have fun as Tohono Chul Park showcases different parts of the desert each week, explaining how important they are for our ecosystem. 
Each week there will be something new to discover from 8 to 10 a.m., at the Tohono Chul Park, located at 7336 N. Paseo del Norte. 

The first discovery day kicks off Tuesday, June 7, and will continue every week through June 28. 

The themes for each week are as follows:

June 7: Bats and Saguaros
June 14: Reptiles 
June 21: Pollinators
June 28: Desert Weather & Monsoon

For members and children admission is free, but regular admission prices apply for non-member adults.  

Interested in discovering the beauty of your desert? Visit the Tohono Chul Park website or call 742-6455 ext. 228 to register for a spot. 

It's time! Thanks to everyone who voted in the first round of Best of Tucson®! Our number of voters grows every year and we are delighted you're helping us provide this annual guide to Tucson. 

Now, down to business. We've tallied your votes from round one and compiled a list of finalists so it is now time for you guys to help us honor our Tucson favorites. 

Fill out your ballot to see who made it to the finals. You've got until July 30 to submit your votes.

This weekend Bank of America is giving its cardholders a nice summer treat with their monthly Museums on Us program.

Museums on Us allows any Bank of America and Merrill Lynch cardholders free admission to more than 150 participating museums in 33 states and 101 cities the first weekend of every month.

Participating here in Tucson is the Tucson Museum of Art &H istoric Block. The Museum offers a number of great exhibits. The most recently added exhibits include Ai Weiwei: Circle of Animal / Zodiac Heads: Gold, and Into the Night: Modern and Contemporary Art and the Nocturne Tradition. The other exhibits currently at the museum are listed on the Tucson Museum of Art website.

All that Bank of America and Merrill Lynch cardholders need to do to gain their free admission to participating Museums is present their credit or debit card and photo ID.

Bank of America says they’ve introduced this program to “provide its customers with free access to artistic and cultural experiences across the United States at some of the nation’s most celebrated cultural institutions ranging from art, children’s and history museums to aquariums and science centers.”

If you’re out of town and want to know if there are any participating museums in the city you’re visiting Bank of America has a list on their website. 

This may be your only opportunity to say that your bank helped you learn something without monthly payments plus interest.

Student loan jokes aside this is an admirable promotion that people should take advantage of.

The death of 49 toddlers in the ABC Day Care fire in our sister desert city of Hermosillo is probably one of the most soul wrenching days—if not the saddest and most puzzling day—in Sonora's modern history.

The morning of June 5, 2009, at least 200 babies and toddlers were dropped off by their parents. In the early afternoon, during nap time (la hora de la siesta) the fire from neighboring storage owned by the state's Finance Department spread to ABC—a warehouse with practically no emergency exists, a small main entrance, defective fire alarms and a tarpaulin ceiling. More than 100 children and staff were injured by the fire, according to Hermosillo's newspaper El Imparcial. The 49 angels passed away either because of the fire, smoke or the ceiling's collapse. 

Evidence quickly piled up suggesting negligence and corruption from the day care's owners, all the way up the ladder to federal and state officials. 

ABC was inspected often, and somehow it always passed. In fact, 10 days before the fire, it passed its last inspection.

Except, in 2005, federal authorities ordered the owners to get rid of the tarp, add more emergency exits and widen the entrance, according to a June 2009 New York Times article. Absolutely nothing happened. What's more, several months later that same federal agency—the Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social, Mexico's Social Security—renewed its contract with ABC even though the repairs were never made.

It took seven years for the families to get some sort of justice.

In May of this year, 19 of the presumably 22 people involved in the fire—including the IMSS representative in Sonora—were sentenced to at least 20 years in prison for culpable homicide of the 49 toddlers.

It's not enough. It's a tragedy that should have never happened.

Kids: One minute you're walking out of the mall with a stack of new pants and the next day there's an extra inch of ankle peaking out below the hem of their jeans.

Combat retail pricing and your growing collection of barely worn children's clothes at the Kids Clothing Swap this Sunday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Fluxx Studio & Gallery (690 E. 19th Street, Suite 130).
 

Like a typical clothing swap, folks will bring kids clothes, shoes, and costumes they no longer wear (or for some of us, have never even worn!) and go home with new-to-them items.

UNLIKE most swaps, all genders are welcome and there will be a DIVERSE selection of sizes for infants through tweens.

Kiddos will be kept entertained with face-painting, a play area, and a fun mini-fashion show while you shop the swap and pick out some killer new outfits for them.

We know shopping is exhausting, so there will be plenty of healthy, tasty, kid-friendly refreshments (and adult-friendly beverages!) to keep you going!

Admission is $10 with clothes to swap, $20 without—though the event description notes no one will be turned away due to a lack of funds. Proceeds benefit the Body Revolution.

Have some clothes you'd like to donate in advance? Reach out to the organizers on Facebook. 

What started as a group of students going on a bike ride for their friend’s birthday has blossomed into the Tucson community event known as Tuesday Night Bike Rides.

The event started back in June 2007 when a cycling enthusiast wanted to go for a ride with his friends before he headed out to the bars for his birthday. The group enjoyed their ride and decided to make it a weekly thing. Each week more people were invited, until eventually it became a community event.

The current leader of the ride, Collin Forbes started attending in November 2007.

“I read about it in the paper after they’d gotten into some trouble with the cops,“ Forbes said.

Interested by the publicity the ride received, Forbes decided to attend the following Tuesday, and has been going ever since. After several people were ticketed for running red lights, and disobeying other traffic laws one night in 2010, Forbes and a group of friends decided to take on a leadership role.

They began planning and guiding the rides, eventually adding themes to every ride. For a while there was a rotation of ride leaders between Forbes and three or four other people. As time passed Forbes’ group of leaders fizzled out. Now he leads, plans, and guides the rides all by himself.

Forbes has a lot of fun making themes for the rides.

“I like to keep the theme secret, most people don’t know the theme of the ride until they're on it. We’ve done rides where it’s entirely right hand turns, as well as rides that were entirely left hand turns. This week’s ride was spirals, if you noticed we looped around a lot,” Forbes said.

Rides average between nine and a half to 12 miles. On rare occasion there is a 17 mile ride to a place called Sun Circle. Forbes like to call that ride “Stonehenge.”

Tuesday Night Bike Riders meet each week in front of Old Main under the flag pole at the UA at 8:30 p.m.

Historians, skeptics and believers in the paranormal can all find something to love about the downtown Tucson ghost tours put on by Specter Tours.

The small Tucson-based tour company leads walking tours around downtown Tucson. 

Tour guide and business owner Robert Owens is a dedicated historian and entertainer. Tour goers are taken around many Tucson landmarks such as the Rialto Theater, the Fox Theater and the Pioneer Hotel.

The Pioneer Hotel, the site of Arizona’s most deadly fire, has a rich history and spooky ghost stories to compliment it.

The tour also stops by 101 E. Pennington Street, an old mortuary that is now the home of Reilly Craft Pizza & Drink and Tough Luck Club. Owens recommends it as a place to relax with a drink while looking for apparitions after the tour.

Specter Tours is in the process of adding a new route, which is expected to open in early July. The new route will take tour guests around Fort Lowell Park with ghost hunting equipment similar to what you might see on television, like thermal imaging scanners.

Tickets can be purchased through Groupon for the Friday and Saturday tours. Tours start in front of the Rialto, loop around downtown, and end at Hotel Congress. 

Memorial day is the federal holiday dedicated to remembering those who have died while serving in our country's armed forces.  

Looking for something to do this Memorial weekend? Here's a list to keep you busy in and around the Tucson area. 

Hymns for Our Heroes 
Santa Cruz Summer Winds and the Jazz Collective of Southern Arizona is hosting "Hymns for Our Heroes" a memorial day salute to those who have died. They will be performing at Community Performance & Art Center, 1250 W. Continental Road on Monday, May 30. For more information visit their website. 

Blue Star Museums
Many museums in Tucson are offering free admission to the nation's active-duty military personnel and their families for Memorial Day through Labor day.  Those museums are: Arizona History Museum, Arizona State Museum, Downtown History Museum, Fort Lowell Museum, Sosa-Carrillo- Frﾎmont House, The Mini Time Machine Museum of Miniatures, Tohono Chul, Tucson Desert Art Museum, Museum of Contemporary Art Tucson and Tucson Museum of Art. 

Swim Season Opens
All nine of Pima County's pools will open for Memorial Day weekend, Saturday May 28 through Labor Day. For more information on prices and specific locations visit their website.