This looks like it would be a lot of fun in Rocky Point.

A wind advisory isn't usually something that constitutes an update on such a high-brow blog compilation as The Range, but considering how dangerous Interstate 10 has become because of dust storms, it bears mentioning today.

That being said, the National Weather Service has warned of high winds, sustained between 25 and 35 mph and gusting to more than 50 mph, in the Tucson area from 11 a.m. today until early Saturday morning.

Such winds can easily lead to blowing dust, especially along I-10, where numerous dust- and wind-fueled wrecks have led to major wrecks, injuries and deaths this year.

• Photo Ryn Gargulinski
• Dehydrating dogs find shade beneath a monster truck in Yuma.

You haven’t been to hell unless you’ve been to Yuma and your car’s air conditioner breaks down.

Actually, we were about 16 miles west of Yuma on our sizzling late-August road trip from Tucson to San Diego when the car’s air conditioner went kaput.

Our options were continuing onward through the upcoming boulders and dust in the 119-degree heat, stopping immediately and playing with the car’s fuse box in the hopes of getting the air conditioner to work or turning around and heading back to Yuma to find a mechanic. When playing with the fuses didn’t work, and continuing onward in the sweltering car would have killed my two dogs in the backseat, we opted to turn back.

By the time we reached Yuma city limits, our faces were bright red and slippery, our hair and clothes were drenched in sweat, and the two big dogs in the back were hyperventilating. One had a white and black tongue.

Hot car, hot air, hot tempers and dying dogs — yes, this must be hell. Our first stop was the first car repair garage we spotted. The three mechanic-looking men hanging around beneath an attached car port did have a giant fan the dogs enjoyed, but they didn’t have the means to help us. They instead sent us down the road to a place they said specialized in air conditioning.

We trudged into a sweltering front office where a scared-looking man apologized the place’s air conditioning was broken and no, he couldn’t help us either. The mechanic was out for the day and they only fixed radiators, anyway.

At this point a little demon man slipped into the hell scenario, advising a quick fix on the car that involved hooking up wires to bypass the switches. The man at the auto supply my beau then visited said sure, the quick fix would work — until it blew up the engine.

All the while my dogs and I crouched in sliver of shade atop hot concrete until they thought it looked cooler beneath a monster truck and proceeded to half-drag me beneath it.

The Southern Arizona Logistics Education Organization (SALEO) has launched a Tucson-Mexico Air Passenger Demand Survey to measure market demand for international service between Tucson and Mexico.
The data will be provided to potential air service providers to detail which dates and destinations are in highest demand.
People traveling from Tucson to Mexico are highly encouraged to take part in the survey which will be online through September 30 at http://www.saleo.org/aviation-survey/

The data results will be announced on Nov. 16 at SALEO's dinner meeting. For more information or to learn the results of the survey send a request to [email protected].

Performance artist Laura Milkins is walking from her home in Tucson, Arizona to her Mom's home in Grand Rapids, Michigan. And she's half-through her journey! What's more, she has a 24-hour live streaming of her walk that you can watch, too. She graciously chatted with me on her Bluetooth headset while she was mid-stride in small-town Kansas.

How are you feeling?

My feet hurt; I'm getting a new blister. That’s fine, but I thought I’d be done with blisters. That's just not true. On a humid day, wearing two pairs of wicking socks, I have a feeling that they’re pretty damp and I'm getting new blisters.

Where are you? How many miles have you walked so far?

I'm on country road, outside Salinas, Kansas. I have traveled over 1,000 miles, and have 900 or so to go. The walk is 2,000 miles total.

What inspired this project?

Other than going home, it’s really about community. I feel like we have a lot of ways of being connected to each other, but people are starting to be afraid of change and are not opening their hearts to the people around them. And yes there are bad people out there, but most people are good. And most of the creeps are not gonna talk to some girl with a webcam on her head. Everyone has a good story. I've been enjoying getting to know people. Our culture is to stay in your home; some of us don’t even get to know our neighbors. We have to reach out to those around us and ask for help. I'm finding that community is out there. There's nothing wrong with electronic social connection; if it can bring you together, good; if you’re on Facebook and not hanging out with friends, then you should probably be talking to your neighbor instead.

Can you elaborate on the equipment you use/wear as you're walking?

I have a MacBook Air laptop suspended, a webcam velcroed to my head, a Novacell battery plugged into the Mac, and a G4 HotSpot from Verizon to give me internet. Most of the time, the livefeed works; it tends to cut out on and off, but it’s worked remarkably well.

Are there some days when you just want to shut the camera off?

I do mute it. Today I was having a personal conversation with a good friend of mine; I mute it, but I don’t turn it off, so you can still see the things I see, but not everything. You don’t want a stranger to know about your friend's personal life, so I end up muting it. I try to have it on 24-hours a day. I don’t care about my privacy, but I do care about other people's privacy. Though I do get tired of being a public spectacle; I look like a Cyborg.

I read that you stay with host families each night. Are those pre-arranged or do you make friends along the way that you stay with?

It's all old-school social networking. My host called around town and found somebody; everybody knows somebody in these small towns. If I arrive into town and don’t have somebody, it just works out. Sometimes my Mom will call a church to find hosts. In exchange, I cook dinner and breakfast for them, and they tell me their stories.

What kinds of stories have you heard so far?

My last host had cancer, and she talked about all the different ways of living and dealing with her sickness. There are themes of ailments, themes of drought. In one town I walked through, they had the worst drought in 100 years, and this guy lost almost all of his cattle. There are also beautiful, happy stories. I stayed with a woman in Moscow, Kansas, and she was saying that her family has just been blessed. Several years ago, her husband started growing cotton, instead of corn, and they've been very successful. This last year, they had to sell their cattle, which was a good idea because of the drought.

Do you intend to enter this project into a festival?

Yes, I'm going to enter it into ArtPrize, which is in Grand Rapids this September. I've timed it out so that I can be there in time for the festival.

At ArtPrize, there’s going to be one large screen that plays the live feed with a banner over it that says, "Live From the Road: Laura Milkins is Walking Home." I'll also have two kiosks with small mounted monitors and keyboards and a headset. So if someone wants to watch the edited tv show on the website, they can watch those. They’re will be 40 beautifully, edited videos that my video guys have done along the way for each week, which includes a Skype interview and edited bits from the feed, video and photographs.

What's your next project?

It will look less like art, but don’t know exactly what it will be. I need to take breaks. I tend to work in a series, like I just did the walking series. This project is the culmination of that series. After this, I'll want to spend time with my family, but the next project will be something quiet.

For more information on Laura Milkins and her project, click here.

We're pretty darn impressed by UA senior Kelsey McKinney, who's set to open the first cupcake bakery and coffee shop in Tanzania by August of 2012:

Kelsey McKinney is fulfilling the dream of a lifetime by establishing the first and only gourmet cupcake bakery and coffee shop in Tanzania.

It took acceptance into the Arizona Assurance scholarship program, two years of college, a scholarship to study abroad and a positive reflection on a childhood that might lead others to despair for University of Arizona senior Kelsey McKinney to find her passion.

That passion has led her to Tanzania, where she will finish her UA studies online and graduate in May along with the first cohort of Arizona Assurance scholars. There, she plans to fulfill a lifetime dream and open up a cupcake bakery and coffee shop.

Read more of Kelsey's story on UANews.

We recently received a letter from a student in Maine. She asked us to publish her request for information. Maybe one day, she'll blog and let us know she is retiring in Arizona.

Dear Reader,

I am a 6th grader in Maine and have chosen the great state of Arizona to research. I would very much appreciate any information that you could send me about your state. Thank you for your help.

Sincerely,

Keristin Grant
Benton Elementary School
68 School Drive
Benton, ME 04901

• MICHELLE WEISS

Photos and Story by Michelle Weiss

• MICHELLE WEISS

• MICHELLE WEISS

Performers, musicians and art shows populate the sidewalk almost every weekend, making summertime one of the busiest and best times to visit the historic courthouse.

The elaborate art shows draw crowds from all over the state. Locals dress up their shops to feature booths for food tasting, handmade bags and clothing, items for dogs and many other one-of-a-kind items created by artists.

Many families come by with their dogs, children and friends to enjoy the music, artwork and food.

One of the local Prescott favorites is the “Dinner Bell,” a popular breakfast place that brings in many regulars.The restaurant has been operating since 1939 and reveals that rustic and historic look along with a variety of bright colors on the tables and chairs.

Home to several lakes and campsites, weekends in Prescott is abuzz with outdoor activities. Watson Lake, a popular spot for locals and tourists, is a sight to behold with granite dells standing sentinel around the park, providing healthy fodder for your rock climbers and scenic photographers. Granite Mountain, located in the Prescott National Park, is a very popular hiking site and stands a beacon for any passerby.

• MICHELLE WEISS

The town's boosters, condo owners, real estate officials, store owners, taco sellers, ATV renters, and residents are desperate for business, and they want people to believe the town of 50,000 is "safe." They want to talk about relative safety, how Sonora is the least violent state in Mexico and why major drug cartel activity seems to skip over the town.

No wonder, then, that Rocky Pointers don't want to chat about the August shooting of a tourist in the popular Malecon portion of the town's Old Port marina.

Asking around about it, New Times was told by several businesspeople that they weren't aware of the murder. Others misdirected reporters, saying it did occur, just not where New Times had been told it happened.

"Take good pictures, tell a good story," urges one man at a roadside food stand.

"You're digging shit up so nobody comes here," says another, miffed at the questions. "We need people to come!"

Then this disturbing follow-up from Gregory Pratt:

A Rocky Point, Mexico man was murdered in a local hospital at the start of Spring Break last Saturday, after gunmen failed to kill him in a high-speed chase through the streets, sources confirm to New Times.

Javier Celaya Vega, 21, was driving a white 2004 GMC Sierra through the city about 4:30 p.m. Saturday when assassins opened fire on his car, pumping 35 rounds into his vehicle. Responding officers found no one inside the truck, so they searched the surrounding area and found Vega wounded, but alive.

Officers took him to the general hospital in Las Brisas del Golfo, but gunmen with AK-47s showed up shortly after to finish him off — the assassins shot him four times in the emergency room and nine times overall.

I've spent a decade or so complaining that there should be a high speed train running from Flagstaff to Tucson via Phoenix, so I'm already in the bag for the message fictional characters Pete Campbell and Harry Crane are selling here, but if some of Mad Men's aesthetic of cool makes rail travel seem more appealing, I'd be thrilled.