Hello Everyone! It is hot, hot, hot here in Southern Arizona – too hot in fact. Yesterday’s temperature hit 100° Fahrenheit in Phoenix and it has been above 90 for most of the week. It’s wonderfully pleasant in the mornings and the late evenings, but the days have just been too hot and my productivity, enjoyment and morale have all suffered as a result. I spent most of the last week in Tucson for various reasons, but don’t feel as though I accomplished much. I was thrilled to finally get out to Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument this week, but when I got there I ended up scouting out some shade to sit in until the sun started going down. I decided yesterday that I will throw in the towel and head north to higher elevations. I’m in my last couple of weeks of freedom before I head back to work for the summer and I want to enjoy them instead of suffering through them. I will stay in Arizona for now, but I will not get to see all of the places I wanted to at these low elevations. I’m sure this part of the country will be quite pleasant in December when I return. That all being said, I did have some nice experiences this week which I am happy to share with you all, but this will be a shorter newsletter than usual.
When I left off last week, I had only just arrived in Tucson and had been out exploring the wonders of Saguaro National Park. When I finished my hikes out there, I stopped off to get a wonderfully refreshing Eegee, an interesting brand of smoothie found only in Tucson. I also got my first of two “Sonoran Dogs” - bacon wrapped hot dogs with a southwestern array of toppings. The one I got on Wednesday was from El Guero Canelo and it was delicious, but I preferred the one I got at BK’s later in the week.
I spent much of Thursday in the library but headed out to the opening day of the Pima County Fair in the late afternoon. It was a cute midsized fair with plenty of rides and games and places to eat. I enjoyed the sea lion show and the pig races and, of course, taking photos of the wildly colorful carnival. The food was terribly overpriced even by fair standards in my opinion, so I settled for a funnel cake which was sadly quite small and not very fresh for my $11. It was definitely fun to be there, though, and I have really missed these types of events. I had a couple of beers and saw some live music, but called it a night pretty early.
On Friday I headed down into Old Town Tucson to see what it had to offer. I started my visit at the old Presidio, which is a re-creation of the fort that once stood high above the river to protect the area. I was thrilled to get a guided tour of the Presidio by Raul, a lifelong Tucson resident, now retired, who was both pleasant and knowledgeable. I found it fascinating that the man in charge of building many of the old Spanish forts, which stretched from the Gulf of Mexico to Tucson along New Spain’s northern frontier, was an Irishman named Hugo O’Connor who had fled religious persecution and joined his fellow Catholics in Spain. I also enjoyed reading about Jose de Urrea, one of Tucson’s most famous native sons. He joined the Spanish army in 1807, but later joined the Mexican call for independence. He went on to fight for Mexico against the Texans in their war for independence, and I first heard his name at Goliad in Texas, which I visited right before the pandemic sent me home. He later served as governor of the Mexican state of Sonora, but later returned to the military to fight against future U.S. president Zachary Taylor in the Mexican-American War. His was definitely an interesting story, one of many I found in the small but informative Presidio.
From there, I went just up the street to the old courthouse, a beautiful building which now houses the main visitor center for the city. Upstairs there is a small museum which looks at some of the crime and justice aspects of Tucson history. I was intrigued by the Arizona Supreme Court case of Ann Jordan and Henry Oyama which challenged the state’s interracial marriage policy. After so much time in the Deep South, it’s easy to forget that these laws were not simply Black and White. Oyama was an American-born World War II veteran with a master’s degree from the University of Arizona, but his Japanese ancestry prohibited him from marrying Ms. Jordan, who was White. The courthouse was also the site of the trial of Public Enemy Number One, John Dillinger, one of America’s most infamous bank robbers who was captured right there in Tucson. From there I went out and enjoyed a little Tucson nightlife, both downtown and along 4th Avenue. I particularly liked Borderlands Brewing Company and the funky little dive called The Buffet Bar.
Saturday began with a visit to the Arizona State Museum on the campus of the University of Arizona. They have a fascinating anthropological collection of Native American artifacts stretching back thousands of years. Their basket collection alone has over 35,000 items in it with some truly mind-blowing prehistoric examples of weaving and lace. Their pottery collection was almost equally as impressive and there were nice temporary exhibits of masks and blankets. The final exhibit, which was actually the one I visited first, was about photography and the preservation methods which protect not just prints, but slides and negatives as well. I wish there had been more photos in this exhibit, but I was happy to see a few from Edward Curtis, the Shadow Catcher, after whom my van is named. From there I headed back downtown to try and get a few photos and then found a patch of shade to park in and try and catch a bit of an afternoon nap, as it was going to be a long night.
As I mentioned last week and several times in the past, as a member of the Eastern Orthodox faith, we don’t celebrate Easter until after Passover, so this past Sunday was our Easter (for more, read this post I wrote about it several years ago). Saturday night I headed out to the Holy Resurrection Antioch Orthodox Church to share in their celebration of the great and holy Pascha. Holy Resurrection is a mid-sized church and a very nice one to see. It was a full house when the service began at 11pm and it went relatively smoothly once they figured out how to turn off the lights. The priest comes out with one candle and everyone lights their candles until the whole church is lit. I didn’t get a candle because I was hot enough in a jacket and tie in the Tucson heat without holding my own personal fire, but then someone offered me one which I obviously graciously accepted. The service went on for about three hours and it had some minor differences to what I’ve seen before, but generally it was nice to be there and share in the service. We did go outside and walk around the church with our candles just before midnight which must be quite a sight for people driving past, oblivious to our unique Easter timing.
I got to bed right around 2:30am, and thankfully had a cool and quiet place to sleep and to sleep in a little bit in the morning. When I did get up, my Sunday was pretty quiet. In the afternoon I went to an Easter picnic put on jointly by the Antioch and the Greek Orthodox churches in town at a small and lovely private club. It was a beautiful property on the outskirts of the city which took a bit of finding but was worth the adventure. The chicken and the lamb they were serving was among the best I’ve had even if I was eating off of a Styrofoam plate with a plastic fork. I would have loved to have talked with some people there, but they were mostly in their family groups so I ate alone and took my leave. I had a couple of beers that night at Crooked Tooth Brewing Company which made some expensive but delicious beers and then headed out to the casino for what I hoped would be a quiet night. I thought I parked in the hotel lot (as opposed to the casino lot), but mistakenly parked in the employee lot instead which was understandably loud all night. I should have moved the first time I woke up, but I don’t know if I would have gotten back to sleep at all if I had. I had to get up and out early in the morning and I really could have used a better night’s sleep than I got.
I did get up and out though, even if I was a little groggy from too little sleep for two days running. It was going to be a scorcher, and with no a/c in my van we had to take advantage of the cool of the morning and made a beeline for Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. This park is two hours from anywhere and you have to make an effort to get there, but it is one of the few National Park Sites in Arizona I haven’t been to before so it was an important destination to reach. I did make one short stop in Why, Arizona which, after now having passed through twice, is an excellent question (to clarify – “Why” is the name of the town). I finally made it to the park around 11, quite hot and grateful for the cool visitor center where I had a nice chat with the ranger. He recommended a two hour scenic drive on a dirt road which sounded like some sort of punishment at that point and I told him any adventures would be on foot from there and probably considerably later in the day. I pulled into camp and was surprised at the lack of shade anywhere out there so I spent a few hours reading under the overhang at the bathroom – which is probably where I decided to give up on the south for now. It did start to cool off around 4 and I did a quick and needed oil change and then set off on about a four mile hike to end the day. The landscape there is beautiful and I was thrilled to see the organ pipe cactus in their natural habitat of the low Sonoran Desert. There were also plenty of saguaro around which, because of the lower elevation, were starting to flower which is simply beautiful to see. I stayed out until the sun had set and it was almost too dark to see, but was definitely happy to have been able to experience the park to some degree. I headed back to camp, cooked a simple meal, and fell blissfully to sleep in my quiet, cool campsite.
I needed to beat the heat out of there in the morning yesterday, too, so it was an early wake-up and a quick walk and then I was off and running into the day. I stopped in the old copper mining town of Ajo to take a few photos in their old town which has a beautiful school, a couple of nice churches and some wonderful murals. The mine there only closed in 1985, so relatively recently, but the town is trying to keep itself afloat which I admire. The landscape just north of Ajo was truly stunning with craggy rocks and saguaro everywhere, but there was nowhere to pull over to take any photos and it was starting to get pretty hot anyway. I did find a place to stop in Gila Bend though, whose town welcome sign advertises 1917 friendly people and 5 crabby ones – and then it lists the five crabby people which must be a real honor. I was there long enough to get a quick shot of the sign and then headed straight for Phoenix. By the time I got to Phoenix it was already 93 and it wasn’t even noon yet so I quickly decided that a hotel night was in order. I haven’t stayed in a hotel in months, and it was a real treat to turn on the a/c to high and take a long, cool afternoon nap. I spent my evening reading by the pool and then ordered a pizza and sat eating it and watching TV with an ice cold beer in my hand. It was a much needed boost to my morale. Sleeping in a cold room after the last two weeks in the low desert was a dream.
I’m still at the hotel, and won’t be checking out until check-out time at 11. I figured I would finish this up for the week while I was sitting in my quiet, air-conditioned room and then take a quick dip in the pool before I go. I’m off to the baseball game today to cheer on the Arizona Diamondbacks in their air-conditioned stadium this afternoon and I’m really looking forward to it. Tomorrow I will catch up with an old friend from college and then I am headed to higher and cooler places. I’ll have a little over a week to explore central Arizona before I’ll have to be back in Phoenix to fly to San Francisco and then on to Hawaii to run my first tour since 2019. I’m quite looking forward to that, but also to the week ahead. I want to really get out and enjoy myself in these parks and towns and make the most of the time I have. I’ll still have a week or so in Arizona when I return from Hawaii, but then I’ll need to start making my way towards San Francisco again to start my season in earnest. I’m looking forward to a better, cooler and more productive week this week and I hope you’ll come back again next week for a far more upbeat and exciting This Week on the Road. The heat just really does me in and I wasn’t expecting it this early in the year. Until next week, then, stay cool out there and if you find you need a break, take one. It’s sure been good for me to do. Thanks for reading and I’ll see you right back here, same time next week.
-Mike
County Fair