Tonto-Tucson-Tubac fit us to a “T”.
Wednesday and Thursday nights in Tonto
Basin at Roosevelt Lake's Windy Hill Campground were a great way to
get this Road Trip underway. We like to jest that Four Peaks as seen
from Windy Hill at The Tonto Tetons. The campground is one of the
very best we know. Hot showers are included in the $8 nightly fee.
We're looking forward to spending one or two more Tonto Nights as
this Road Trip nears its conclusion. We visited Tonto National
Monument Thursday morning. When we were there early in March 2015,
we were told new exhibited were doing to be dedicated only a mere
week later. Unfortunately, we couldn't wait to see the exhibits last
year.
We were very excited by the new exhibits. First class job.
However, the new exhibits raised some intriguing questions that we
may or may not ever be able to answer.
Thursday afternoon we
hiked on a portion of The Arizona Trail and enjoyed some unusual
views of Roosevelt Dam and Bridge. We also learned about O'Rourke's
Camp, a historical footnote we never knew about.
We left Tonto early Friday morning.
Our hope-for meeting with Cindy and Don couldn't take place as
planned so we did some food shopping, refueled and headed south of
Arizona Highway 77. That's a very spectacular route not far from The
Gila County Seat. Miles and miles of steep downhills in Apache Acorn
Country.
We arrived in Winkleman before noon and sent a couple of
hours there. We briefly thought about spending the night there but
decided against it. There's a large free park down by The Gila River
but it's just too funky for us.
We tried unsuccessfully to
find the confluence of the San Pedro and Gila Rivers. The spot where
they join is just far too overgrown with tamarisk trees. It's a
tammy jungle. We did get to see Winkleman's historic Luten Bridge
which is turning 100 years old this fall. A celebration is planned
for October 15.
After leaving Winkleman, it's a pretty
much straight shot south to Tucson. We went to the Catalina State
Park but it was full. Park Staff told us it had been full for
months. We wound up staying a a real dump o an RV park in Catalina.
“Any port in a storm,” as the saying goes.
Saturday morning we spent a little bit
of time at the Oro Valley Spring Arts & Crafts Fair. It was
mostly all crafts and very few true “arts” in evidence. Next we
visited the Steam Pump Park Farmers Market and it was a hoot. It's
easily one of the best true Farmers Markets we've ever seen. Lots of
high quality locally grown produce and home made foods. The
highlight was seeing the vegetable roaster guy. For over 37 years,
we've always thought chile roaster drums were used to roast green
chiles. HA! This guy was roasting anything called “vegetable,”
from eggplant to garlic, you name it, he was roasting it. And
everything he roasted was a mere $5 for a very large bag. There was
also a very innovative brick oven pizza person there, too.
The
highlight of the Steam Pump Park for us was seeing an authentic
recreation of a pit house in context with a traditional garden. Very
amazing work!
Next, we drove to Sam's Club and did a little
shopping and then it as off to The St. Phillips Farmers Markets next
to the Rillito River on Campbell Ave. There we met with Dear
Facebook Friend Cindy and her Friend. They had a wonderful produce
booth and is was so fun to meet them face-to-face.
Afterwards
we slogged our way through Tucson's famous traffic congestion to get on
I-10 and find IO-19 and head south. Exit #92 comes up right away and
within minutes we were at the incredible San Xavier Mission. My, my,
it would take two or three blog posts to write about that amazing
place. So powerful and overwhelming. Words and pictures cannot do
it justice. It has to be experienced personally.
After leaving San Xavier we were
straight to The Tubac Trailer Tether, checked in around 2:30 PM and
vegged out for the remainder of Saturday. Susun went out on the town
Saturday evening and had a typically fine time.
Sunday was a
very busy day. So busy, in fact, that we decided to stay a third
night. You wouldn't think there is all that much to do in Tubac.
But you would be wrong. The place is full of stuff to do, especially
if you enjoy history AND art.
We started Sunday by hiking a
portion of the historic Anza Trail down into the amazing riparian
gallery forest of The Santa Cruz River. Then we were to see the Tumacácori Mission ruins. We returned and found Carmen at the
gallery she manages. Until Sunday, we hadn't made the connection
that we knew Carmen in Cottonwood back in the late 80's early 90's.
It was a fun and wonderful visit.
We found the USGS Tubac stream gage for
The Santa Cruz River and then visited the Community Garden. It's the
best Community Garden we've ever seen and this is only it's first
year. Just one of the many cool things happening in Tubac and
vicinity.
It's mid-day Monday as we write this
blog post. We did the historical walking tour of Tubac and then
visited the Tubac Presidio Museum. This is an incredibly history-rich
place. Most of that history has to do with Spanish Colonial and
Arizona pre-territorial times. There is one historical aspect to the
place which utterly fascinates us both—the production oprf
Arizona's very first newspaper on March 3, 1859. Believe it or
not, the press that actually printed that first newspaper is now back
in Tubac and is part of the Presidio Museum display.
And,
believe it or not, the press is fully functional (after a 9-year
restoration) and is accompanied by EVERY single item you wold see in
a frontier newspaper printing shop. It's amazing. It's easily THE
Best display we've ever seen of a pre-Civil War printing press in
functional form.
We're doing Traveler Chores now—laundry,
cleaning stuff, tidying stuff—you know those chores. Later today
we're heading back to Tumacacori to go to a mesquite saw mill. We
hope to get a finely milled slab of mesquite with which to create a
custom Cribbage board. We also plan to go back to the Museum to
take better photos of the Washington Press. We will probably visit
the Library to use their WIFI to upload this post and accompanying
photos.
Tomorrow, we head to Nogales early Tuesday morning.
It's going to be a long day in Nogales. Lots of shopping on the
American side and at least a short visit to the Mexican side in search
of galvanized buckets. There's a ton of history in Nogales, too, as
we hope to visit their museum and learn more. A lot of Nogales
history ties in with my Grand Dad's US Army service here in 1916.
We
will leave Nogales no later than 3 pm Tuesday as it's a long drive up
to Sonoita and then 20 miles south to Parker Canyon Lake. That's our
next destination. We plan to spend at least 2 nights there, maybe
3.
After we leave Parker Canyon Lake, we're heading to Sierra
Vista, Bisbee, Douglas and then Portal, Arizona via Rodeo, New
Mexico. After 2-3 nights in Portal, it's on to Fort Bowie and then
Chiricahua National Monument. The NPS continues to say the Bonita
Canyon Road will reopen on March 6. We're hoping to surf ashore there
on March 7th. After the Chiricahua's, we might visit
Whitewater Draw and/or Cochise Stronghold. Then it's north to
Safford and back east to Globe. Hopefully, our timing will be right
to see Cindy and Don the second time through Globe.
Finally,
after leaving Globe, we get 1-2 nights in Tonto Basin and Windy Hill
before heading up over The Rim to home in The Verde. The way things
are going now, it looks like we will be back on sometime between
March 13-15.
