Blogs from Tucson, Arizona, United States, North America - page 9

Have you ever wanted to do something spontaneous? One evening, I packed my bags. I looked online for any last minute airplane flights. I took a taxi to O'Hare airport. And I flew to Pheonix, Arizona. I did not have a plan at all. It was 2:00am when I was at O'Hare airport. I was upgraded to first class and went to sleep on the airplane. At 7:00am, I woke up in Pheonix, Arizona, rented a car, and drove 2 hours to Tucson, Arizona. Then, I met a friend at the air force base, climbed Mountain A, and felt the 90 degree weather blazing my face. Then, the next day, I climbed Tucson Mountains. By 2pm, I flew back to Chicago. It was an epic day of travel.... read more

JOHN CAMPBELL GREENWAY Each of the 50 states is allowed two entries in the Hall of Statuary in the US Capitol. The notables selected for that distinction from the State of Arizona are the Jesuit priest Father Eusebio Kino, and John Campbell Greenway. Padre Kino would probably be surprised at such an honor because he was not in Arizona very long. Just long enough to leave footprints for other missionaries to follow before he died at Magdalena in 1711. Missionaries who came later brought the church to our heathens and introduced European style agricultural techniques that flourished along the Santa Cruz River Valley. Kino’s influence on those improvements was huge and the native inhabitants along the river flourished. Sadly enough John Greenway has about drifted into historical obscurity. He was born in Huntsville, Alabama ... read more

We took one day to drive up the road to Mt. Lemon. We went as far as you can drive (about 27 miles) and enjoyed it alot. The road leaves just NE of Tucson and goes from about 2500 ft elevation up to over 8000 ft. The views out and down to Tucson and all around are fantastic! Not many tourists the day we went because it's winter (Feb 5). But come summer this is an extremely popular place to go and cool down form the deseert heat. And they even have a small ski lift at the end of the road.... read more

Photos from this day in Sabino Canyon Jakub's suggestion was to follow Yvonne's suggestion to visit Sabino Canyon near Saguaro NP East. This was one of the spots I researched and wanted to visit. There are trams that run about every 30 minutes up the 4-mile road with 9 stops along the way. Visitors can get on or off at any of those stops. We rode all the way to the top at stop #9. Here we found a trail leading down to Sabino Creek. What could go wrong --a nice path along the creek? Well, the decent was pleasant enough. Jakub spotted a red bird (sorry, you'll have to ask Jakub whether it was male or female, what was it's Latin name, was it indigenous, et cetera). At first everyone seemed to always be quite ... read more

FAT DRUNK ON A HORSE The artistic community of Mexico commissioned a very nice bronze statue and sent it to Arizona in the spirit of cultural exchange. It was to coincide with the 50th anniversary of Arizona statehood. Their counterparts up in the state’s capital, upon seeing the lovely piece of artwork, were proud to accept the generous gift in the spirit of international goodwill. In an act of further generosity the minions in Phoenix decided that, ummm….the perfect place for such a statue to be displayed would be at a park in Tucson. Civic leaders in Tucson had a parcel of land downtown that was no good for commercial development but would be a fine location for a nice little park. The site is where Congress Street and Broadway converge west of Church ... read more