The Three T's

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 7^th. 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.