What a pleasure to leave winter behind and head for a place where "snow" and "slush" are just words in the dictionary! When my wife and I chose Arizona one January, we were also seeking history, culture, natural beauty, variety and contrast, all of which we found in abundance in this sixth-largest state.
One of the joys of travelling is to discover the unexpected delights travel brochures tend to overlook. Of course we wanted to visit the Grand Canyon, Sedona, Monument Valley and the great golf courses, but we found many other fascinating surprises too. We began by spending two weeks in beautiful tranquil Tucson.
Surprise! Too Much Water!
The Sonora Desert that covers much of Arizona is far from being the arid wasteland or dustbowl that "desert" brings to mind. This desert blooms with wild flowers of all sorts in late winter, so it welcomes gradual rain and moderate runoff from the mountains. A little too much or too quickly, and in an instant flash floods can catch you unawares, with deadly consequences. It had been raining before we arrived in mid-January, and while driving from Phoenix to Tucson we watched a police helicopter try in vain to rescue a woman from her SUV which had been caught near the highway, in just that situation.
As we heard many times that winter: "The desert makes its own rules, and you either respect them or die." We also learned that unusually heavy runoff had strained the capacity of the state's reservoirs, so that prolonged flooding would be the norm for several more weeks. It just meant that we had to be cautious, avoid dry creek-beds, and stay away from some narrow canyons we had hoped to explore.
With Tucson as our base, we found no lack of interesting places in the south-central part of the state.
The "White Dove of the Desert"
The early Spanish missionaries built chapels and missions throughout Mexico, which at the time included Arizona. While many of the missions are now in ruins, and those which survive to this day are mostly humble structures, there is one architectural masterpiece south of Tucson: San Xavier del Bac, built in 1783.
No tourist trap this: although it attracts many visitors, the "White Dove" is a normal parish church. Its exterior combines simplicity with a mildly ornate entrance, giving a hint of its impressive but tasteful interior, somewhat like the humble yet dignified faces of the parishioners whom we met there.
Sonora Desert Museum
A leisurely morning drive west from town took us through the Saguaro National Monument, with its miles and miles of those enormous cactus "trees", into Tucson Mountain Park, site of the Desert Museum.
On the way we noticed a group of buildings which looked old yet new, and oddly familiar. No wonder: they were "Old Tucson", which had been the setting for many a movie and TV show, including Dr Quinn, Medicine Woman". I'm sure it would have been an interesting place to visit, but we didn't stop, since we knew we'd see plenty of genuine ghost towns before heading back to Canada.
The "Desert Experience" would be a better name for the museum, since it contains dioramas, aquariums, and a very educational earth sciences center. Outdoors, its spacious grounds are the best place to learn about Arizona's wealth and variety of cactuses and animals, since hundreds of indigenous plants and animals live in near-natural settings there. Kids of all ages just love it!
While there, I had my own unforgettable "experience". While taking close-up photos my hand accidentally brushed against one of those innocent-looking Cholla cactuses, the ones which look like furry white teddy bears. AYEEEE! The air around me instantly turned blue as the Arizona sky, and it was days before I got all the barbs out and the pain subsided. There's something for everyone of all ages at this museum, but do be careful!
Pima Air Museum
Tucson enjoys what must be the world's finest outdoors exhibit of military aircraft from the earliest and smallest to the latest and greatest. Most are American, but there are Russian, British and other craft too, and some really historic attractions. We saw, for example, a B29 Super Fortress which had seen action during WW2, and the presidential plane which JFK used on his final trip. I was particularly impressed to see the formerly top-secret "Blackbird" spy plane up close. The fastest plane ever built, it could fly about 50% faster than the Concorde. In 1970 I was teaching at the USAF Academy, and was attending the graduation ceremony when it made an unannounced fly-by... Whoosh! I never expected to be fortunate enough to ever see it up close.
Tombstone
This rough and bawdy 1800s mining site might have been just another ghost town today, but residents liked its healthful climate and decided it deserved a better fate. They made the most of its connection to the legendary sheriff Wyatt Earp, and proclaimed it "the town too tough to die". Today the old saloons, the OK Corral, the courthouse, jail, scaffold and other attractions are there to visit. As you might expect there are stagecoach rides, and "shootouts" are re-enacted periodically in the street.
"Justice" was swift and certain, though not always fair in early days. On the outskirts of town sits what is believed to be the first "boothill" cemetery. Its unadorned, rocky setting and rough graves marked by grim signs, contain the bodies of more than 180 desperados and a few judicial errors, such as George Johnson - recorded as "hanged by mistake". We also found the grave of Lester Moore, who inspired someone to pen: "Here lies Lester Moore, Who took two slugs from a 44; No Les, no Moore".
These are only a few of the interesting places we visited in the south-central part of the state, before moving on to Parker, farther north on the Colorado River. What we found in that area is the subject of the next article.
Questions?
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