Two Days in Tucson

Continuing with our winter trip to Arizona. For those who are new here, we started our trip in Page then headed to Vegas. We took a day trip to Valley of Fire and then went to the beautiful city of Sedona. On our way to Tucson we made a quick stop at Rooster Cogburn Ostrich Ranch. 

After checking in to our hotel and taking a little break we headed out to downtown Tucson, we didn't even park.. we drove around but didn't seem bustling with activity or people.. Next we headed to 4th ave in the Historic District. It was a fun street with lots of shops, a bit on the sketchy side but nothing dangerous. We checked out some of the thrift stores until it was time for dinner. 

We ate at El Charro Cafe, founded in 1922, is the oldest Mexican restaurant in Tucson; the original owner, Monica Flin, is said to have invented the chimichanga.

 

Everything was so good!

The next day after a quick hotel breakfast we visited the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum. The Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum is a 98-acre zoo, aquarium, botanical garden, natural history museum, publisher, and art gallery founded in 1952. It is a mostly outdoors museum so beware of the heat if you plan to visit in the summer.

We spotted some javelina taking a nap. While some people think javelina are a type of wild pig but they are actually part of the peccary family. They are herbivores but can be extremely aggressive if they feel threatened. So stay away. 

 

It was a very fascinating museum.. We had lunch in one of it's two cafes. 

Saguaro National Park is a 92,000-acre park consisting of two separate areas—one to the east of Tucson and one to the west. We knew we would not be able to do both parts of the park so after reading up on both we decided to do the west. Among other things, one of the key advantages was that it was minutes from the museum.

We explored the following -

Desert Discovery Nature Trail 0.5 miles

Valley View Overlook Trail 0.8 - we liked this one the best.

Hugh Norris Trail Head. We didn't hike the whole thing, just the first 10-15 minutes to get a feel for the place. 

After a while all the cacti start to look the same. 

That night we had dinner at Falora Pizza. 

They were fine. A weird thing to complain about but they were TOO heavy on the toppings. Almost couldn't taste the pizza. 

The next day we had another hotel breakfast and made the 2 hour drive towards Chiricahua National Monument. The monument was established on April 18, 1924, it is most known for its hoodoos: also called a tent rock, fairy chimney, or earth pyramid and are tall, thin spire of rock formed by erosion. As well as balancing rocks. It is believed that the unusual rock formations were caused by a massive volcanic eruption 27 million years ago.

This place was really cool.. like it blows my mind that the current people in charge want to defund all these beautiful places. I don't believe that I am a mean person but I wish the very worst for them. 

Anyway.. 

Our points of interest were 

Echo Canyon Grottoes 1 mile

Massai Point Overlook and Nature Trail

Bonita Creek Trail 1.3 mile. This one we weren't really feeling so when we saw a turn off at Ed Riggs trail we did a bit of that instead. 

This one reminded us of Groot.

We had pre bought some lunch and ate it in the car as we bid farewell to this wonderful place. 

Our last stop of the day was Tombstone. Tombstone was founded in 1879 by prospector Ed Schieffelin and played a pivotal role in the mining history of Arizona. It was also famous for being a lawless town. People flocked to settle in the city and, by 1883, the once-tiny hamlet was one of the largest and fastest growing cities in the West. But when the mines flooded the city almost became a ghost town. Today the town has a populations of 1000 people give or take a few hundred. It is a popular tourist destination where you can visit the old timey saloons and attend a re enactment of a gun fight. 

Unfortunately, by the time we arrived the last gunfight had already begun. We walked around the town for a bit. It was like stepping back into time. 

We drove back to Tucson. We had dinner at Culinary Dropout and it was one of the best meals of our entire trip.. that is saying a lot since we ate really well on this trip.

We were starving so no pictures.. but we did go out for ice cream afterwards and that was pretty good too. 

And that concludes our two days in Tucson. 

Not to make this post any longer than it needs to but the next day we headed to Phoenix. We spent some time is both Scottsdale, hole in the rock and downtown PHX but there was not enough picture taking to make it blog worthy. So this post concludes our Arizona adventure.. hope you enjoyed the trip. 

 

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