Tucson

For our January snowbird adventure, Bruce and I took Amtrak's Texas Eagle to Tucson, AZ. This route is technically a 3-day trip originating in Chicago and ending in Los Angeles. Our portion only took 2 days (about 48 hours) - long enough for me to be glad when we finally got off the train. 

Traveling cross-country on a train is interesting, because you see quirky little towns that you wouldn't normally see from the freeway. But riding on a train, especially a double-decker train, can leave you feeling a little queasy with all the swaying and rocking. Conductors on a train never turn on the "fasten seatbelt" sign when the going gets rough like the pilots do on a plane. They just tell you to hold on and wear shoes when walking down the aisles.

We spent the first 2 nights in Tucson in the downtown historic district. Tucson is known for being the place where the famous outlaw, John Dillinger, was captured in 1934. When a fire broke out on the 3rd floor of the Hotel Congress, a fireman recognized members of Dillinger's gang as they were evacuating the building. The 3 windows in front are the only structure that remain of the third floor. This wasn't the hotel we stayed at, but I learned about it as I sketched it while sitting at a tea shop across the street.

I also sketched the Rialto Theater, and while doing so, noticed on the billboard that there was going to be a concert that evening. I'm not normally one for staying up late, but since we'd gained an hour being on Mountain Time, I went in and bought tickets.

The concert turned out to be a tribute to Led Zeppelin. Stairway to Heaven is Bruce's all-time favorite song, so he was excited to attend. 

It's been years since I've been to a rock concert. I thought we were really lucky to get seats near the stage until the music started and everyone stood up to dance in the aisles (why those people didn't start out in the standing-room-only section is beyond me, because 3 hours is too long for me to stand up). But the band was extremely good. During the intermission, they told us they had another act in which they played songs by Pink Floyd, The Who, and Queen. I checked the Branson website, but this band isn't scheduled to play anywhere locally.

The Santa Cruz River runs through downtown Tucson with a nice walking/biking trail running along both sides. There are actually several "rivers" in Tucson, but I didn't see much water in most of them. However, they must have a problem with flash floods when it rains, because I saw signs everywhere warning you not to drive on the road if there was water across it.

While we were walking along the river trail, we stumbled across this little park, called the Garden of Gethsemane. They had several full-size religious sculptures all painted in white. It was very pretty.

One of the things I always love about traveling to the Southwest is the food. We went to El Charro's Cafe twice and ordered the same thing both times (I had the hand-made tamales; Bruce had the enchiladas and a prickly pear cactus margarita).

When I originally scheduled the trip, our intention had been to go hiking in Saguaro National Park. Unfortunately, with the government shutdown, the park was closed, so we spent a day at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum instead. This turned out to be a lucky fluke, because this wasn't your typical natural history museum, but a 21-acre part zoo/part botanical garden. 

We saw lots of animals (much different than we have in our zoo at home), like these javelinas (a wild boar with a pig-like snout). They weren't the liveliest animals, but it was so warm out, I didn't blame them for wanting to take a nap.

The mountain lion didn't want to come out of his cave, which was fine by me. I'd rather see one behind a fence than out on the trail.

Supposedly there were bats in the underground cave, but luckily we didn't see any real ones - just this replica of how large your ears would be if you were a bat.

They had an archaeological dig site for kids to look for fossils. I "discovered" some old dinosaur bones. A little kid gave me one of the fossils he'd found.

My favorite exhibit was the cactus garden. I couldn't believe how many different varieties there were (over 1,400 the brochure said). Most of them were blooming (tiny flowers on top), since this is coming up on Arizona's spring season.

For the final 3 days of our trip, we moved out to the Ventana Canyon Lodge. Again, I'd made this reservation, because it was close to the national park. But we found out that Ventana Canyon had its own set of trails just a half-mile away from the lodge.

The trails were very, very rocky (a lot like Boulder, CO)

with lots of stream crossings. Unfortunately both Bruce and I fell into the water trying to walk across the tops of slippery rocks. I know I'm a klutz, but I never expected it of Bruce.

The hills along the canyon were covered with cacti growing wild.

Since I had my sketchbook in my backpack, I couldn't resist stopping to paint one. These are called Saguaro cacti; they're the ones that grow very tall with multiple arms growing out of the sides.

All-in-all, it was a very good trip, but I think the best part of the whole thing was that we missed the 11" snow storm that my sisters had to shovel out of - better them than me.