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Published: March 1st 2020
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February 17, 2020 we continued east to Tucson. This was our longest drive for quite awhile, 250 miles. It was pretty straight and flat though across I-8 to I-10. The landscape was a mix of mountains, cattle lands and desert. We passed through the Sonoran Desert National Monument and passed by a huge solar power plant. We have never seen panels like those. They were huge, concave and shiny, not flat and black. Once on I-10 we passed Picacho Peak State Park and seeing the peak so close to the highway was unique.
We stayed on the east side of Tucson almost on the eastern edge of the city. We booked our site for 2 nights and then spent the first day exploring the area to check out other camping options. In the end we decided to stay where we were. Availability was extremely limited all around and here we lucked out with a cancellation. We were also happy we had to change our site because the first one put our slide out about 6-12inches from the carport of our neighbor. This is another resort type set up with mostly park models and seasonal residents. It has been a great
View of Tucson
From Saguaro National Park East location for the things we wanted to see and do here as well as wouldn't you know it, another air base is down the street so lots of fighter plane training! We have even seen a few older planes this week as they come here to certify annually for the air show circuit.
Saguaro National Park is here in Tucson. There are 2 locations one on the East side and one on the West side of the city. We are only 5 miles from the East visitor center. The day we visited there we hiked one of the trails up to a ridge and got some great views of Tucson to the west and the view to the east is not developed so just gorgeous landscape. We saw several different desert plants, some birds and butterflies. We saw a skeleton of a saguaro too. They call the insides "ribs" Saguaros only grow 1-1.5inches in their first 8-10 yrs. of life. They are 50-70 before they sprout their first arm! They are so strong. We did see them swaying in the wind but We learned that when woodpeckers make a hole in a cactus the cactus tries to repair itself
Old Court House
Heritage and Visitor center on the inside by leaking a sap which hardens to seal itself. Once it hardens its to me like a hollowed out gourd, it is called a "boot". The woodpecker returns to nest. Then other birds take advantage of the hole when they abandon their nest. There are several hiking trails and a park loop drive. We thought we would've hiked here more but kept busy with other things so didn't get back. We visited the West area a different day and did a short hike to view petroglyphs left by the ancient natives. This area seemed to have more saguaros than the east side. When we got out of the car to take the trail we could hear a pack of coyotes barking and howling! Middle of the day! It was eerie and cool.
We spent a day walking through the historic part of Tucson the downtown. They have a nice heritage and visitor center in the old court house building that was quite spectacular. There is an open courtyard as you enter the area with the offices off to the side. They had great exhibits of the local culture, landscape and plant and wildlife. They also had
lots of info for seeing the area. The historic walking tour is a turquoise line along the sidewalks that guide you and a map that interrupts the number landmark you come to as marked on the line. I wish all cities had that. Made it easy to see the area and know where you are going and what you were seeing. There are other areas of the downtown we didn't walk through but seems there is lots to do here for restaurants, art, theater, and then all the hiking. The city also has a 100 mile bike loop. I really like this city, so much to keep you active. The weather has been great, summer like for the most part. We did have some cool rain last weekend and some strong winds. I can see why people spend winters here.
South of the city is the Mission San Xavier del Bac. A catholic mission founded in the late 1600s and the building the church in the mid 1700s. It is beautiful. In recent years the construction and art work has been being restored.
South and East we drove out to Tombstone. It was so neat! They kept the
Petroglyphs
Signal Hill trail Saguaro Nat'l Park West old facade of the buildings and even a dirt street with wooden sidewalks along the Main Street. We had fun walking around and watching a re-enactment of the shoot out a the OK Corral. It was kind of touristy but also most of the shops had a nice mix of authentic western/native clothing, textiles and artisan work. They had a few bars and restaurants along with a trolley ride or horse and coach tour. We were glad we took the time to drive out there. It was fun.
Thursday Mike was watching the morning news and heard that the PGA tour Champions event that is in Tucson this week was hosting a Pro-Am and it was free to spectators. So we made our way over there for the day. Turns out at this tournament local amateurs can pay to play with the pros for charity. So the pros were teamed up with 4 ams. There was NO one there so we sat right in the seats on the 18th green and watched the groups come through. We saw lots of old pros along with Roger Clemens and John Smoltz. It was kind of cool being there while they were
still setting up everything for the professional event that runs Friday and the weekend.
We have enjoyed our time in Tucson. We are getting anxious though to be exploring northward and then making our way back to Maine for the summer. Tomorrow we are driving up to Phoenix to stay in a resort we stayed in over Thanksgiving. We plan to take in some spring training games and hopefully after a couple of weeks the overnight temps will not be too concerning for frozen pipes in the RV.
Oh, one more thing.....I won 2 games at bingo this week! So exciting! Take care 😊
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