Tucson, Arizona

9th -18th Dec

We began this trip, as we did last year, with no real fixed itinerary. Save for a few specific dates like meeting friends in Tennessee, our college football game in Texas, a weekend to come in Las Vegas with my brother, and obviously our end date, we have made our plans as we go along. But there comes a point, as we approach the final month or so, when we start ‘back-filling’ the bookings. We also had to think where we wanted to be, and where we could be, for Christmas and New Year, especially as this seemed to be coinciding with being at altitude, in the desert, in winter, in areas totally geared up for spring, summer and autumn tourism. Our itinerary was starting to firm up and we realised that we were a bit ahead of schedule with some days in hand. For this reason, and because we had been in the relative wilderness for 5 weeks, we booked ourselves into a city centre RV park in Tucson for 8 nights. Civilisation!

At first glance our park was quite austere. A small tarmac lot, surrounded by a tall wall with a large electronic gate, sandwiched between an apartment complex and a small school. It turned out to be a fantastic base for our week of city life. There was a supermarket and hardware store over the road, a long riverside cycle path a few hundred metres away and good bike and walking routes into downtown, which was only a mile or two away. There was also a great clubhouse space complete with pool table, table football and ping pong table, all of which were like private facilities as no-one else seemed to ever use them. My pool did improve a little, but I cannot compete with Hampson’s skills. His tertiary education was in English, History and Pool.

We walked and cycled a lot in Tucson. The manageress of the park thought we were crazy when we told her we had walked the 6km to a shopping mall one day. 4kms to a hairdressers another day (Well it is rare to fine a Toni & Guy!). Cycled 25 km along the river around town on the cycle paths and another day cycled up the steep road to the top of Sentinel Peak, or ‘A’ Mountain. This peak is a small cone-shaped hill overlooking the CBD and was a few km from camp. It is called ‘A’ mountain for the large whitewashed stone ‘A’ constructed on its upper face by freshmen University of Arizona in 1915. This has been maintained by subsequent generations of UA students.

Christmas is definitely on its way and I have managed to find a teeny-tiny TinCan appropriate tree. This is Albert. Named for the supermarket chain, Albertsons from which he was procured. He is 42cm tall including the pot and has a daily trip outside to photosynthesise.

Our stay coincided with the city’s ‘Parade of Lights’, a Christmas parade by any other name. This was a convoy of fifty or so vehicles, private and municipal, bedecked with countless strands of fairy lights and festive decorations. It was very pretty and as we stood in the cool and dark, all wrapped up, it made us quite nostalgic for the Northern Hemisphere winter Christmas. Despite sixteen years of living in the Southern Hemisphere, the concept of a summer Christmas, complete with long warm days, broad daylight parades, BBQs and salads has never really made sense. Just not cold and miserable enough ‘down under’.

A trip to the movies was too far to cycle and required a voyage by Uber, another advantage of city living. We went to see Mortal Engines (Hampson’s choice). This was not only in 3D, but in those fancy D-box seats too. These are reclining Lazy Boy style seats that move and shudder in synch with the action. Another level in movie going experience! Despite being only the second day since the movie’s release there were only about six others watching with us. Perhaps not the box office hit that it was hoped to be, although we both really enjoyed it.

Our weather here was delightful for the whole week. T-shirt weather in the day and not cold enough to need the heater on at night and bone dry. It is easy to see why the Snow Birds all flock from Canada and the Northern states to spend winters in these benign conditions. We spoke to the locals that we met about the heat of the summer. Its not bad, apparently, as long as you don’t go outside at all. Our Uber driver to the cinema was originally from Sudan. He thought it was too hot. Our homeward bound driver was one of the most verbose humans we have ever encountered. Like an olympian for chit-chat. Astounding.

Tucson is sandwiched between East and West Saguaro National Parks, the only National Parks created to preserve a specific species of plant, the very impressive and characterful Saguaro cactus. This is a very slow growing species that can be up to 70 years old before they start to sprout the branches like arms that can make them look very human. They stand like an army of upright soldiers on the hillsides, looking like they are waiting for something. As we left Tucson we headed out to Saguaro West, first stopping at the quite stupendously impressive Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum. This is a zoological park that apparently is routinely listed in the top ten of its kind in the world. It is a 100 acre park with walking trails through the desert terrain and various exhibits of native animals like coyote, javelinas, mountain lions, beavers, otters, birds reptiles and spiders. It also, a bit bizarrely had a small aquarium and a stingray petting exhibit. My favourite area was the walk-in hummingbird aviary. There were 20-30 beautifully colourful tiny hummingbirds free-flying around our heads and drinking from eye level feeding stations. It was magical. After we left the museum we drove through the park, admiring the Saguaro, and then onward to our next stop a couple of hours up the road, an overnighter at a large park in Casa Grande. It was fine.