A few days in and around Tucson, AZ

It's Sunday evening and we're wrapping up our stay in Tucson.  We've had a number of days filled with fun and educational activities.

Wednesday

We visited the Sonora Desert Museum on the east side of Tucson.  This is a combination of botanical garden, natural history museum, and zoo.  We started with snakes and spiders.  This was Matthew's idea.  It's amazing how many kinds of poisonous critters there are in the desert!  The first 8 or 10 displays were all different kinds of rattle snakes, only to be followed by scorpions and tarantulas!

There were also larger, perhaps safer animals, thank goodness.  We saw sleeping javelinas, mountain lions, lots of birds, coyotes, and big horn sheep.

We followed this up with a trip to Saguaro National park.  There are two parts to this park - an eastern area and a western area (west of Tucson).  We visited both but I'll combine the pictures here.  The cacti in the western area tend to be older, many up to 150 and 200 years old.  Upon entering the park were were overwhelmed with the acres and acres of Saguaro cacti, the iconic symbol of the west.

We took a short hike and saw lots of small holes on the side of the trail.  Bill immediately thought of those snakes, scorpianans, and tarantulas.  But fortunately we never saw any of the occupants. We were overwhelmed by the number and variety of Saguaro cacti. They would grow up the sides of mountains and seemingly on bare rock.  We started naming them.  Here's Slim Jim.

Poppa Bear, Momma Bear, and Baby Bear.

Mr. Octopus.

The Ghost of Saguaro Sam.

You can see the internal structure of the cacti in that picture.  There are wooden ribs that provide internal support.  The outer skin is accordion-like so that it can expand and contract depending on the availability of water.  A large Saguaro can hold up to 2 tons of water.

Of course we had to imitate the cacti.

On  this hike we also saw petroglyphs (rock carving) carved by the Hohokam people.  These were estimated to have been done some time between AD 200 and 1450.

One word of advice if you are considering visiting this area - be careful where you park.

Thursday

We visited the Pima Air and Space Museum, a private collection of about 300 military aircraft.  Some of the planes are nicely restored and in buildings (like a B-29 and B-17) but others are just sitting out in the Arizona sun (like an F-104 and about three B-52s).  This was kind of "Bill's thing."

In the evening we drove into down town Tucson and talked around an historic artist's area.  We ate at an outside cafe where a Navaho was performing.

Friday

We have a weekly Skype video call with Matthew's class on Fridays.  This allows Matthew to share his experiences with his class and to stay in touch.  Every RV park we've stayed in has had Wifi and so we have been able to do this pretty well throughout the trip.

In the afternoon we went to the annual Tucson Rodeo.  This attracts some of the biggest names in rodeo.  We have been to a few rodeos, and as always there were lots of thrills and spills.

Saturday

This was our day to give up on being educational and just be tourists.  Just south of Tucson is a church that some claim is one of the most photographed church in America - San Xavier del Bac.  This was built as a Spanish mission in the 1700s and continues to serve a local congregation.  It is located on an Indian reservation and most of its parishioners come from the reservation.  It has been beautifully restored.

We sampled some Indian fry bread on the way out.  Delicious!

After that it was off to Tombstone, the "town too tough to die."  This is the scene of the famous shootout at the OK Corral in about 1881, with Wyatt Earp.  The town was a boom town, with silver mines and plenty of lawlessness.  Earp and his brothers were the local authorities.  The town now makes a living off of tourists. They do an enactment of the shootout about four times a day, 365 days a year!  The action takes place in the street, leading up to the final scene in the corral.  It was good fun.

 Of course, Bill had to give some "coaching" to one of the characters - Doc Holliday.  You need to be tactful when you're talking with someone with two six-shooters!

We also met a variety of colorful characters, like a blacksmith.  And Matthew was able to try out his roping talents.

Of course there were lots of shops and places to eat, and we enjoyed these as much as the theatrics.