Sabino Canyon: a Taste

On the last day of Allie and Corey's visit, we drove to Sabino Canyon Recreation Area for a short hike.  I wasn't sure what to expect with the the federal government shutdown.  The private concessions were open.  The bathrooms were open.  The visitor's center was closed.  The Forest Service website for Sabino Canyon directly blames the "Radical Left Democrats."  A violation of the Hatch Act?   I think so.

We didn't let this political bias by certain federal officials affect our ability to enjoy a beautiful day for hiking.  Public lands are for all who reside and visit here.

Allie picked out the Sabino Walkway Loop as the trail for the day.  The trail was only 2.3 miles but still presented some rocky terrain with challenging ups and downs.

We got a bit of a late start so we were all pretty thirsty by the end of the trail. A trip to Pueblo Vida Brewery in Tucson cured that problem.

A National Park and a Museum

On Saturday, the four of us had a big breakfast prepared by yours truly and then drove to West Saguaro National Park.  Julia picked out a trail that was Allie/Corey friendly.  Neither are big hikers.  Allie is known to whine a little if the trail is too far or too steep.  This one was perfect.  I think they both had a good time and enjoyed walking in an environment very different from San Francisco, where they live.

The trail was called Scenic, Passey, Packrat Trail Loop-a little under two miles with 282 feet in elevation gain.  Fall hasn't quite arrived in Tucson yet, although high temperatures have fallen into the mid 80's.  

Saguaros don't have rings like trees, so there's no way to accurately date them.  However, park rangers  told us that a saguaro doesn't grow an arm until it's 80 years old. The one above has a few arms.

Julia has fully transitioned from tree hugger to cactus hugger.  This armless specimen is just a baby.

We survived the short hike for the final group photo.

Next we were off to the nearby Arizona Sonora Desert Museum.  This guy was there to greet us on the road before the turn-off.

Julia and I bought annual passes, which included two free passes to get Allie and Corey in.  The cost was a little cheaper than buying single day passes for all of us.    There are many exhibits outdoors and indoors.  Volunteers give presentations on areas of interest.  One was the importance of water in the desert. I particularly liked this poem, which resonated with my first monsoon season in Tucson.

Many of the animals and reptiles here can be found in the wild behind our house.  The javelinas behind the fence looked much more docile than the ones we see in the preserve.  There were way more types of rattlesnakes in Arizona and Sonora than I knew existed.  The most amazing thing to me was how well they blend into the desert environment, making them very difficult to see unless they warn you with a rattle.

After several hours at the museum,  it was mid-afternoon, and we hadn't eaten since breakfast.  We drove to BK Carne Asada and Hot Dogs so that the kids could sample each.  

Julia wanted to try the local raspados con crema, a Mexican treat with shaved ice, fruit and ice cream.  I tried the coconut, and it was quite good.

With that, it was back home for a card game and beverages.  I won the card game, which capped off a pretty good day.  I let Corey win on the next day (maybe).  Part 3 will be coming soon.

Meet the Parents

 This will be a three-part post.

Our daughter Allie brought her boyfriend Corey here for a long weekend visit.  Julia had met Corey before during a San Francisco visit, but it was my first chance to "assess" the young man.

Turns out he is very polite, nice, and even enjoys Guinness.  After arriving late on Thursday night, they had to both work remotely on Friday.  We celebrated the end of their work week by going out to dinner at Amelia's, a well-known local Mexican restaurant.  

Julia splurged at Amelia's by ordering the molcajete mixto, a shareable dish served in a heated volcanic rock mortar, filled with grilled meats, seafood, vegetables (nopalitos), and a bubbling, flavorful sauce.

There were a lot of leftovers.

A good deal of time over the next two days were spent on the trails working off this dinner.  More to come.

Kitty, Kitty

 The weather is finally starting to cool off at night so that we can open the window screens and turn off the AC.  With the modest change in the weather, we have noticed some wildlife changes in our area.  The migratory bats have mostly moved on.  They were dive bombing us at sunset at the community pool.

This week, we made a road trip to Wilcox. Julia and I had been there once before, and I was unimpressed.  She heard from friends that the farms and orchards in the area were worth the visit.  The apples were past season. There were still a few Granny Smiths, but that was pretty much it.  For twenty cents off full retail, you could pick your own vegetables in the fields.

Tirrito Farm

There may have been a milk stout involved in providing an incentive for the trip.

I can say that it was interesting how Wilcox farms can turn irrigated desert into vegetables, nut trees, and fruit trees.  There is no free lunch, however.  It will be interesting to see how agricultural interests compete with homeowners' desire to drink water and bathe, as ground water levels drop each year with more and more reports of dry wells.  

One of the locals was telling me that Arizona farms export a certain variety of pecans to China, while China imports a different variety of pecans back to the United States.  I asked what the difference was in the taste, and he said he couldn't tell the difference.  We humans do strange things for a buck.

We have seen bobcats in our community before.  Julia saw one on the sidewalk in our neighborhood.  However, we had a first today when a juvenile bobcat quietly walked through the back patio only a few steps from our sliding glass doors--before squeezing through the back fence to hunt packrats on the other side.  Good bobcat!

Adjust Your Elevation

 Bisbee, Arizona has an elevation of about 5500 feet.  Oro Valley has an elevation of about 2620 feet. That doesn't seem like a big difference, but on a 100 degree day in late September, it was the difference between 100 degrees and 82 degrees.  

Most hot days, we are up early here in Oro Valley, taking our morning walk at sunrise, playing pickleball, and then back home by 10 a.m. when it starts getting warmish.  Then we are back outside in the early evening to take advantage of the cooling temperatures, although sunrise is as cool as it gets.

This week, we took a road trip in search of cooler temps in the higher elevations.  The first stop was Tombstone, which is the western equivalent of Wisconsin Dells, mostly a place where the locals extract dollars from the tourists.  

There are all sorts of creative methods to do this:  gunfights in corrals, tours of buildings previously housing bordellos or saloons, stagecoach rides, etc.  

The most interesting one that I saw was to rent a gun (a rig, they called it) to walk around town, armed.  If I recall correctly, that was a $50 extraction.  

We walked up and down the streets for thirty minutes or so while keeping our wallets intact. Then it was on to Bisbee, the planned destination to leave a few dollars behind.

Thuy's Noodle Shop

We were last in Bisbee several years ago. Our favorite Vietnamese “pho” shop was still here and just as good. Then it was a short walk downhill to the brewery where we had spent several afternoons on the patio, looking up at the mountains all around us and enjoying the Bisbee vibe. 

Old Bisbee Brewery

I had a double hopped IPA, not to be confused with the much stronger double IPA. Double hopped simply means introducing a second load of hops after the initial boil (dry hopped). It was malty and well balanced.  My favorite stout here is now seasonal, so it was not available.  That's a good excuse to return in the winter.  

Then there was time for walking around town in the early afternoon when temps were quite pleasant even in the sun.

An interesting truck camper

Bisbee is another place that I could live if granted several lifetimes. A quirkiness is present here  that I enjoy and haven’t experienced in many towns. There’s tourism here but the vibe is real with a dose of wishful thinking and escapism that many of us could use during these "interesting times."

Desert People

We have been settling into a routine during the last few weeks--at least, I have.  Julia went back to Wisconsin for ten days for previously scheduled girlfriends' events.  I've been walking the nature preserve early in the morning and sometimes at sunset.  

Also playing pickleball nearly every day.

A new friend’s private residential court

In Julia's absence, I sampled local Mexican restaurants with good reviews on Reddit.  My favorite was St. Mary's Mexican Food, a humble takeout place where you can get meat, beans, rice and fresh tortillas for less than $8.  I ate it in the parking lot, and it was delicious.  

This past weekend, we entertained our first guests--friends from Wisconsin who I've known since college but haven't kept in close contact with.  It turns out that they have been coming to Tucson every winter for about twenty years.  Mike and Kathy were here for a funeral for a few days, but will be back again in February during which time we will no doubt be hanging out again.  

Kathy was amazed at our transition to Tucson.  She said, "Wow, you are desert people now."  I guess we are.  

I'm still scorpion hunting on most nights, but I haven't been finding very many lately.  Julia thinks that's a good sign.  The packrats have continued to visit, and I've been feeding the desert about once a week with the bounty from my rather large rat trap.  Nothing is wasted here, and anything thrown over the wall into the desert is gone by morning.  

We've had rain several times since we arrived, but it's very different than Wisconsin.  Rains have been furious but short--usually over in 10-20 minutes.  Most late afternoons cloud over, and we see frequent lightning. However black clouds and lightning do not mean certain precipitation like it did back home. 

It's still all very new and interesting to us.  

We've been checking out the local music scene.  This was a blues band at the Landing.

Next week, I should have an outing to blog about.  I think we will head down to Bisbee and enjoy a little higher elevation/cooler temps.  This week, it will likely stay below 100 here in Oro Valley--but just barely. Still too hot to open up the windows at night. That's all the news from the Sonoran Desert.

Chocolate Milk and Quail

When I stopped in Albuquerque last week, Michael gave me four stouts.  Two of the stouts were from Michigan and made by New Holland Brewing, one of my favorite breweries.   Two of the stouts were from Albuquerque by Boxing Bear Brewing and have earned assorted awards including a 2024 Silver Medal at the American Beer Festival.  It's called Chocolate Milk Stout and actually does contain cocoa nibs added to the brewing process.  I wasn't sure that I was going to like that, but the effect is quite subtle.  The milk part is from added lactose which adds both sweetness and mouthfeel.  All in all, an excellent stout.  

Tonight, as we were eating grilled burgers and asparagus, we had visitors performing the balance beam on our rear fence.

Planes, Buses and Pick-up Truck

When we moved to Arizona a few weeks ago, I drove the U-haul truck, and Julia drove her Subaru.  That left my Dodge Ram back in Wisconsin at a friend's place.  I could have towed it behind the 20' U-haul, but I just didn't feel comfortable doing so.  Plus, it gave me an excuse to take a solo travel trip to retrieve my beloved truck and see some of the country. Spoiler Alert:  there are no photos from this trip.

On Monday, I drove to Sky Harbor airport in Phoenix (Julia drove the Suburu back home) and boarded a cheap flight ($120) for Chicago.  It was about $300 more to fly directly into Madison.  I maneuvered my way through O'hare until I found the regional buses.  Eventually, I boarded a Van Gelder bus that made stops in Rockford, Beloit and Janesville before burping me out on the outskirts of Madison, Wisconsin.  My step-mother-in-law picked me up and dropped me off at my truck in Lodi.

I finished emptying and cleaning out our storage unit, made a stop at the bank, and was headed to Iowa.  In Cedar Rapids, I helped my mom with some business, and then she joined me on the road to Omaha, where she planned to spend several days with her cousin.  I continued on and spent the night at a cheap motel in Kearney, Nebraska.  On the next morning, I rolled through the rest of Nebraska, a desolate stretch of eastern Colorado, and ended up at an even cheaper motel in Albuquerque.

On the next morning, I had breakfast with Michael where we exchanged stout beers for future consumption and ate some delicious New Mexican food.  It was the first time that I've met MFH.  While it was a short visit, I hope we get to hang out again sometime.  

Then I was back on the road for probably the most scenic part of the trip, driving through the El Malpais National Monument.  I made mental notes of trails and campgrounds that I want to take time exploring.  After that it was down, down, down from above 7000 feet to the Sonoran Desert of my new home.  I was back at home with Julia and Callie by late afternoon.  

This morning, with no other remembered entanglements to Wisconsin, we are settling into our house.  On this morning's walk through the nature preserve, we encountered a new animal that was kind enough to pose with Mount Lemmon in the background.

Encounters with Nature

 Arizona is decidedly different than Wisconsin.

Our home is in the Sonoran Desert--literally.  During the past week, we've had encounters with scorpions, packrats and javelinas.  

First, I'll show the "cute" picture of the pack of javelinas that blocked our path during our morning stroll through the nature preserve.  

These javelinas were the second encounter that we had this morning.  They very lazily walked across our path and into the brush.   Didn't really give us even a glance.

Our first encounter about twenty minutes earlier was less fun.  There were two javelinas off the trail about 10 yards.  A male javelina left the female and joined us on the concrete path, staring at us from less than ten yards.  Okay, no problem.  We'll just back away.  Nope, he started trotting towards us.  Apparently they can run over 35 mph if inclined.   We decided to go off trail and circle around both animals.  As soon as we turned our backs, the male began to run faster at us.  I  turned around and started yelling loudly and waving my arm.  The other arm was attached to Callie, and javelinas don't like dogs.  Fortunately, the javelina was puzzled by my behavior and stopped following us.  No pics of that guy; I was a little busy. 

We discovered the packrats when I went to open the built-in gas grill on the back patio.  The packrat was just as surprised as me, given that no one had been living in our house for six months.  That resulted in another trip to Home Depot where I bought a couple of rat traps that were much, much bigger than the mouse traps that I'm used to.  The first night brought success.  The second night--not so much.  This will likely be an ongoing battle.  We covered up the grill openings as much as we could with heavy duty wire fencing, and aluminum plating, where possible.  

The final matter to be addressed was with the scorpions.  I bought a black light and have been venturing around the house after dark, discovering several of the little buggers each night.  Those that I found "went away."  I bought some spray that I will apply around the exterior foundation to discourage entry into our home.  

That's all the news from this corner of the Sonoran Desert.

First Monsoon Storm

 

Late afternoon yesterday, the clouds started to gather in the southwest.

 

 In the middle of the night, we heard thunder, saw flashes of lightning, and then it rained for about 30 minutes.  That wouldn't be any big deal in Wisconsin, but it felt pretty special here in the desert.  

On our morning walk, without breaking stride, Callie lapped from the occasional puddle of water.

 

Settling In

 We unloaded the U-Haul truck last Friday and have been busy unpacking and crossing off to-do lists. None of the major cell carriers have good service in our neighborhood, which is between two mountain ranges. 

The internet (fiber optic) was installed today, and that will make things much easier. Calls (WiFi calling) stopped getting dropped immediately, and I can write a blog post without timing out. 

We live in a beautiful area. I missed mountains so much.

Yeah, it’s hot, but early mornings are pleasant, and that’s my favorite time of day.