Tucson, AZ

Welcome to Tucson, where there’s 350 days of sun a year!

Wait, what?

Yup, we picked the week it rained three out of the seven days we were there to visit Tucson, AZ. Who goes to a desert to get rained on? We do. Kind of like when we were hiking through a rain forest in Alaska and it didn’t rain single a drop. Oh well, what are ya going to do?

 We still had four glorious days of sun to explore the area.

Saguaro National Park was at the top of our list of places to see. Saguaro (suh-WAHR-oh) NP is made up of two districts with Tucson in the middle.

I wasn’t expecting so much green and life and…mountains.

We cautiously did a few hikes here. Between the six different kinds of rattle snakes, the Africanized “killer” honey bees, and the fact that all of the plants are trying to kill you…we didn’t really stray off the beaten path.

It’s a desert with tons of different cacti…they really do reach out and grab you. There’s a type of cactus called cholla that has barbed spines that detach from the plant easily and embed in your skin. Sounds fun, right? No?

There was also an unexpected beauty there.

The bright colors really stood out next to all of the green and brown.

Even the pretties have teeth in the desert.

We never saw any snakes, but we did see some petroglyphs!

We found some shelters built by the CCC! Can you spot them?

The only wildlife we saw was this mule deer. Actually, there were two of them, but we only saw a flash of the other one.

The saguaro cactus is an icon of the American southwest. In a single rainfall, a saguaro may soak up as much as 200 gallons of water, they can live more than 150 years, grow over 60 feet tall, and weigh up to 8 tons. They were impressive in their almost human-like shapes, towering above the rest of the desert.

Mission San Xavier del Bac is called the “White Dove of the Desert”. This is the oldest intact European structure in Arizona.

The church is open to the public unless there’s mass taking place. We roamed around the open rooms and the grounds.

If you’re ever in the Tucson area, make sure you stop by.

I’ll be honest with y’all…I wasn’t really looking forward to the Titan Missile Museum. I like the outdoor stuff….the hikes and the scenery. Museums aren’t really on the top of any of my lists, but this is one of those times I’m glad we went. The docent did a great job of keeping it interesting and informative.

They had some memorabilia out on display. See the canned drinking water? They had those for sell. The cans reminded us of when the tornado hit our house and someone came by handing out…canned drinking water.

They took us into the control room and explained what life was like for those working at this facility and we got to see the Titan Missile. The boys did the Junior Missileer book while we were there and earned a patch for their effort. We got a surprise when the woman in the gift shop signed their certificate, identifying herself as one of the soldiers that used to work there at the facility.

We found this place as we drove by it. It’s hard to miss with all of the huge planes sitting out front. We got there in the late afternoon and had to rush through it before they closed at 5pm, but we got to see pretty much everything.

The boys learned a little about airplane controls.

Hmmm…I think I’ll take a different flight if these two are at the controls.

The Pima Air & Space Museum is one of the world’s largest non-government funded aerospace museums.

There are over 300 aircraft spread over 80 acres of land.

We would have liked to have been able to slow down and get a better look at some of the different kinds of aircraft. It’s definitely worth a visit.

Of course we had to try some of the Mexican food in town. How could we not?

We ended up eating at four different places. Two were fantastic (Taqueria el Pueblito, and St. Mary’s) and one was, well…it was food…I think.

At St. Mary’s I found out there are rolled enchiladas and flat enchiladas…so, of course, I had to try them both. The rolled enchilada is what most of you are familiar with (the one on the left in the pic above) and the flat enchilada is kind of like a fried disk of the masa that’s on the outside of tamales and then it’s covered with the toppings you want. They were both very good!

The other place we ate is called El Guero Canelo. We ate there because we heard that it’s the place to go to try a Sonoran Style Hotdog. What is a Sonoran Hotdog? It’s a bacon wrapped hotdog with beans, grilled onion, fresh onion, tomato, mayo, mustard, and jalapeno sauce. It’s a big mess. The bun is made in house and is the sweetest hotdog bun I’ve ever had. It was good, but I can’t see myself ever really wanting one again. Jerl didn’t even finish his…it’s not his type of thing.

Tucson is an interesting town. There’s enough to do in the area to keep a family busy for two to three weeks. We’ll probably be back in the Spring sometime so we can see the saguaro cactus’ bloom…and for more food.

See y’all down the road!