Our time in Tucson is over. We had an amazing, wonder-filled, and fun two months. But now it’s time to return home.

We bookended our week with the rodeo. (This rodeo is 6 day affair over two weekends). We saw the first day of the rodeo at the beginning of the week, and the rodeo parade at the end. We had very little idea of what the cowboys and cowgirls were doing, but there was a lot of excitement, a ton of people, and an easy family atmosphere. It was great good fun, but as good as it was, the week’s highlight was the Eastern Saguaro National Park.

We visited the Western park earlier. We saw the stark, dramatic landscapes that we associate with the Sonoran desert. The Eastern park is different because it gets more rain, making it a riparian area. (This is just one of many words Arizonans use to describe water.) Here we saw the famous Saguaro cactus, but we saw much more diversity, both of animals and plants. And I saw more shades of green than I could count. If you ever come to Tucson, make sure to visit both parks and Sabino Canyon.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

Liz and her BFF Kylie visited this week. Of all the things we did (and we did plenty), my fav is the Sabino Canyon.

Ed and Lynne stayed with us much of the week. Some of the places we visited turned out to be a little underwhelming. Monday we visited Catalina state park and did a little hiking. Then we visited the Romaro Ruins. The ruins weren’t visible because they were all underground. The guides served up the same pre-Columbian history we heard at other places. I did notice one significant historical difference. The Spanish mission movement was started by the Jesuits. The king threw the Jesuits out and had the Franciscans take over. Why the switch? The activities in New Spain were supposed to send 20% of the take to the king. Some say the Jesuits were skimming the take. Others say the Jesuits didn’t want to take taxes from the poor indigenous population. We’ll probably never know for sure. My bet is that there was plenty of greed from all involved.

We also visited Steam Pump Ranch, which could have been interesting, but the steam pump is well hidden.

Our big event Tuesday was the Kartcher Caverns. This cave had countless examples of all manor of cave formations. It was discovered in the 1980s. The development of the cave was very good. It was wheel chair accessible, which was good thing because one person in our tour fainted. The guide used the cave’s wheel chair to get her out. Once outside, she recovered quickly.

There is an excellent chance that one of the artifacts found in this cave does not exist in any other cave. It is the skeleton of a Giant Sloth. These animals went extent about 12,000 years ago. This animal obviously died long before the cave was formed.

Our last dinner together was at El Charro, an iconic Mexican restaurant.

Thursday Ed and Lynne moved on to their next stops in Texas while Danita and I stayed behind and took a down day. We met some people we know in Snowden Overlook who are also spending some time in Tucson. We went to Opa’s, a Greek restaurant that serves excellent food.

On Friday, we visited Canoa Ranch, one of the more interesting places we toured. The ranch traces its history to a land grant issued by Spain. When Mexico got their independence, the grand had to be registered in Mexico. Then it had to be registered in the US. Apparently, few of the original Spanish land grands lasted this long. At 330,000 acres, Canoa Ranch is about half the size of Bonanza. (I know, that is the opposite of “Twice as Big”, but I learned this after I wrote the title. Besides, Bonanza was pretend. Canoa is the real deal.) The ranch’s heyday was in the 1950s,. By 1970 it was abandoned and falling apart. A developer paid $6 million for the last parcel to build housing. Then the county decided they wanted to preserve the main buildings. They paid $6 million to get about a third of the last parcel. Not a bad deal for the developer. If you are ever in Tucson and want to learn something about the history of this part of the world, Canoa is a nice place to start.

Ed and Lynne joined us Wednesday. They’ll be with us for a week. So far, the major attractions we visited include the Alfie Norville Gem Museum, the Pima Aircraft Museum, Old Tucson, and the Titan II Missile Museum. The weather continues to please — sunny with daytime highs near 80, dropping to the 50s at night. Here’s a pic of Ed and Lynne appreciating some gems at the Norville.

We visited the Model Train Museum, open for a few hours every Sunday afternoon. I was floored by the size of the place. Think of all the train fire house gardens you have seen. Put them all in one building. This was bigger than that. They had an entire warehouse filled with trains of different sizes. Each was immaculate.

There is a large community of active people in model trains. There are all manor of kits and items available to people who are into trains. The picture below is of a small scale train garden. If you look closely, there is a house in the lower left corner., This house was put together from a kit. Each piece was laser cut from an appropriate material. The gentleman is holding the skeleton of the house kit. He said it took about 40 hours to assemble the house.

A sidelight that most people didn’t pay attention to was the Erector Set. As a kid, I had a marvelous Erector Set. It came in a metal box. It had separate compartments for each of the parts. There was a booklet with all manor of things one could build. Mine even came with an electric motor. I had a fantasy of building the carousal. I didn’t even have a fraction of all the parts required. It’s just as well. I also didn’t have the skill to assemble such a complicated project. The Erector Set gave me many hours of fun.

The best part was how available the train gardens were. The Erector Set items were on a high shelf safely out of touch. But the trains were readily available. Children wandered the aisles with the help of stools that made it easy for them to see. It was also easy to touch, but everybody respected the exhibits. There were no plexiglass panels to protect the trains.

What a surprising throwback!

Our highlights this week include a concert by the Tucson Symphony and a performance of “Ain’t Misbehaving”. We also visited the Tubac Presidio which has the printing press that was used to launch Arizona’s first newspaper. It still works just fine.

Mostly we’re goofing off and enjoying some very nice weather. I hope this finds everyone doing well.