On Dec. 11, it was raining (of course, Amy was here). So we went to the Arizona State Museum at the University of Arizona. They have a great exhibit called Paths of Life on all the different tribes that have lived in the area - Arizona, SW Ca, northern Mexico. I've seen a lot of ruins, petroglyphs, etc with interpretive material, but nothing putting all the tribes in context, when and where they lived. It was really nice to get that overview, and to see all the neat artifacts the museum has.
Then Amy and I had yummy pizza for lunch and I dropped her at the airport. It sure was fun to have her here visiting.
The rain was supposed to stop that evening, so I decided to brave the camping thing and drove to Catalina State Park, just a bit north of Tucson. As I read the payment instructions at the entrance booth, a passenger car passed me and headed into the park. I read I was supposed to pick a site and come back to pay in the morning when the office was open, so I followed the car into the park. I came around a curve to one of those "Do not enter when roadway flooded" signs. Well it was just pouring so of course there was water in the road. But the passenger car was on the other side, he'd obviously made it so surely my high-clearance, four-wheel drive jeep would? I'm a bit of a wimp about such things (or intelligently cautious, depending on how you look at it), but I decided it was less than 10 feet across the water, so I went for it and made it just fine. I followed the signs to the tent loop, and drove around it looking for a dry site (Ha! Dream on!). I got all the way around the loop, it was dusk and just pouring rain, so I just pulled into the last site to think about it - should I get out the rain gear, and have a walk around to pick a site? Or maybe just head to that Holiday Inn I saw 5 miles back? I'd never get the tent up without getting drenched. Then there was a knock on my window - the campground host. She wanted to warn me that the stretch of road with water sometimes floods and you can't get out for a couple days. Guess they had a really bad fire a few years ago which has led to a lot of erosion upstream, so the wash carries a lot of sand across the road and you just can't get across the water/sand mix, even with four wheel drive. Well, I'm thinking it's been 15 minutes of absolute downpour since I came thru the water, is it smart to drive back thru it? I decided to just stay where I was, I moved over into the passenger seat to get comfy, and had a few of the yummy homemade Xmas cookies Amy had brought me (nothing like a cookie to cheer you up!) I had a bunch of episodes of the NPR Sunday puzzle podcast that I hadn't listened to, so I passed an hour or two solving puzzles and amazingly enough the rain started to let up. Wonder if that was about when Amy landed back in Denver? :^) Anyway, soon enough the rain stopped altogether, I picked a nice site that wasn't a lake and set up my tent.
The next morning I got a good look at how nice the park was, but it was cold. Hmmm....that snow line isn't much above my campsite:
I stayed there a few days. They have some nice trails that I hoped to hike - but quite a few started like this:
Yes, that's the trail on the other side of that normally dry wash. I know, I'm a wimp, I could have waded across, but somehow, since I was waking up to an ice-encrusted tent from the heavy frost every morning, and the campground didn't allow campfires, well, I just wasn't willing to get wet feet. So I skipped those hikes, but there were some nice shorter trails that didn't require wet feet. Cool cactus:
And some really nice views:
One day I drove 45 minutes or so west to Sabino Canyon. The upper part of the canyon also required wet feet, but I had a nice walk in the part accessible with dry feet. I saw a pretty cardinal:
The creek was beautiful, and running strong from all the rain:
It just feel weird to be hiking in the desert and see all that water:
On Dec 16 I packed up and headed south to Patagonia Lake State Park, a nice campground on a lake (manmade) an hour or so south of Tucson. While there I had a nice hike in the adjacent Sonoita Creek state natural area, through some nice scenery:
Down to Sonoita Creek:
One evening I took a ranger-led sunset boat ride on the lake. Saw lots of birds and a gorgeous sunset.
On Thursday Dec 20 I drove up to Benson, 40 miles or so east of Tucson. My former neighbors and landlords in Corvallis, Polly and Lee, spend most of the winter there, so I stopped in to visit with them. They have a permanent RV lot that they own with a cute little casita on it that I stayed in. Aah, a real building, with a heater! Such luxury! It was really fun to catch up with them, and their adorable Westie, Mitzi:
The RV park was having lots of Xmas activities - one night we went to a Christmas carol concert, another night we went to a bonfire and caroling hayride. They have a really nice view from their porch, and we saw some gorgeous sunsets:
Today (Xmas Eve) I'm flying from Tucson to my parents in Venice, Fl for the holidays. And it's just about time for my flight, so I better go. Hope everyone has wonderful holidays!
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