Under the Tucson Sun

Greetings from Dan in the sunny southwest! Hope all of you (especially in Michigan and on the east coast) are staying warm.

We spent December and January in the Sonoran Desert of southern Arizona, calling Tucson our home base. A year ago, having never been to the southwestern US before I pictured it all being more or less like the area around Tucson - warm, dusty, rocky, and covered with saguaro cactuses. The iconic cactuses in particular made the landscape feel wonderfully different even from Albuquerque - not to mention Flagstaff or Michigan. In two months, I only started to get used to them.

The area of Tucson that we stayed in was not quite as easy on the eyes. There was nothing WRONG with it really - it was just that it was flat, boring suburbia. An occasional cactus did little to freshen up the otherwise bland sights. The main roads were laid out in 1 mile x 1 mile perfect squares, and three lanes wide in each direction. Our Airbnb was directly on one of these arteries, and we quickly got used to traffic buzzing by at 40 mph day and night. From where we stayed it was about a 20 minute haul down these roads to reach downtown Tucson, and 20 minutes in the opposite direction to reach the eastern unit of Saguaro National Park.

The weather in Tucson in December and January was, let's just say, recommended. Daily highs in the mid 60s to low 70s were common, as were blue sky views with not a single cloud in sight. Winds were generally light, and nights were "chilly" but stayed above freezing. It was a strange feeling for us to be able to walk outside around the holidays without even needing to put a light jacket on.

Those holidays looked a little different in general too. Normally for Christmas, Corinne and I split time between our families in Michigan - along with extended family and friend visits. This year, not wanting to leave the cats in an Airbnb alone for a prolonged period we just stayed in Tucson for a quiet season. Our decorations are all in storage, so we purchased a 4ft formerly live tree from the local Lowes and decorated it with the ornaments we had collected since starting the trip in May (We have a tradition of collecting Christmas ornaments as souvenirs from places we visit, and might be approaching 100 of them now in total. They remind us each Christmas of all the places we have been together). I had Christmas through New Year's off work and it was very relaxing. We did get to see Corinne's parents in person, as they flew out to see us for a very enjoyable week earlier in December. My family and I normally do jigsaw puzzles together on Christmas, so (at Corinne's suggestion) I ordered both my family and I the same puzzle and we completed them "together" on a marathon video call.

Tucson is billed as having the best Mexican food in the USA, and it did not disappoint. One place a mile away from our Airbnb featured a modern take on the cuisine, including four house-made sauces and salsas to go with artistically crafted cocktails. A mile in the opposite direction was a different place where you could order guacamole that was made to order right at your table by a sweet elderly lady. The rest of the food was excellent too, rivaling Albuquerque's in our perception of the quality and variety. A breakfast restaurant near us had a "Bacon Flight" featuring eight different types of bacon - need I say more?

What else did we do in and around Tucson? As usual, quite a bit! Some highlights were:

• For my 33rd birthday on December 8, Corinne and I explored the western unit of Saguaro National Park. This was our first up-close encounter with the saguaros, making my first birthday ever spent outside of Michigan a memorable one! We'd spend time in the eastern unit of the park in January.

• With Corinne's parents, we made the short drive to Biosphere 2 - the site of a famous human habitation experiment in the 1990s. The site is now a broader purpose scientific research facility.

• Putt putt and Christmas cookies with Corinne's parents!

• The disc golf in town was uninspiring, similar to what I had seen in Albuquerque. There were a couple of interesting courses around though. The best course near Tucson was at someone's private desert ranch. The guy's dog accompanied me for my round and even guided me to each tee!

• I enjoyed a 2 day/1 night solo trip to the town of Show Low, Arizona. This trip allowed me to see another area of Arizona I hadn't yet explored, including more trees and the impressive Salt River Canyon. That said, the main point of this trip was to play a nice nearby course as my 400th different disc golf course played! On the way back to Tucson, I detoured over to another course on the outskirts of Phoenix famous for playing around a lake with a giant fountain in it.

• We checked out a Tucson Roadrunners hockey game. The Roadrunners play in the same league as our beloved Grand Rapids Griffins (who are enjoying an incredible season so far, by the way. Go Griffs!). It was fun to get a little taste of hockey and cheer on the local team.

• We took a day trip up to Phoenix to see the Musical Instrument Museum. One of my musician friends recommended this one to me, and it did not disappoint! We were in there for hours.

• We drove up nearby Mt. Lemmon and experienced the different world on top - a world where the temperature was 40 degrees colder, large pine trees lined the road, and the hustle and bustle of Tucson below seemed far away. We stayed for sunset!

• Speaking of sunsets, we saw some incredible desert sunsets. I think Lake Michigan sunsets will always be #1 for me, but these were breathtaking.

• We spent an afternoon at Chiricahua National Monument, which had absolutely incredible rock formations. This site may become the next national park, and we thought it was worthy!

• I did a popular hike near Tucson - the Seven Falls Trail. This was a beautiful hike up a creek bed to - you guessed it - a waterfall with seven distinct sections.

• On our last night in town (which was also our ninth anniversary of dating!) we got takeout from the oldest Mexican restaurant in the country and watched the sunset in the national park. Then, we capped it off with a performance at the Gaslight Theatre - a hilarious original show in stereotypical Western style.

• Even on our way out of Arizona, we squeezed in one last destination. En route from Tucson to Yuma, we stopped at a Tesla Supercharger halfway - and then Corinne squeezed into Dan's car for a 75 mile (each way) detour down to Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. This is a very remote park on the southern border that is the only place that organ pipe cactuses can be seen in the US. I wanted to go to see the organ pipes specifically, which are SO COOL and way different than the saguaros. We also enjoyed a fun picnic with our kitties outside the visitor center. It was a long day of driving, but a worthwhile detour!

After two nights in Yuma, we drove out the rest of the way to our current home - San Diego, California! Before even checking into our new rental, we went straight to the ocean. It was so nice to see "big water" again after 6 months! We showed the kitties the Pacific, meaning that they have now seen both oceans that border the lower 48! (they saw the Atlantic near Portland, Maine last May).

I think I've rambled on enough! If you made it this far, thanks for reading! :)