Weekend in Tucson

Suzanne went to a nursing conference in Tucson on Saturday. I've been wanting to check out Saguaro National Park, so I went along. Well, I went along for other reasons, too, but I did want to see the park. It's split in to two pieces. I went to the part on the eastern side of Tucson Saturday morning. It's a very nice park, though their visitor's center parking lot is way too small. I had to sit in the van for several minutes waiting for a place to park. A very helpful gentleman in the visitor's center described a hike that would be about 3 miles long. That sounded good to me. My foot has been acting up lately so I didn't want to walk very far. It was about 60 out there with a light breeze. A lot of plants had flowers, so there was a lot to look at.

I had always thought prickly pears were boring plants, but now they are covered with pink and yellow flowers (both colors on the same plant). They were very pretty. The ocotillos also had flowers, but I'll try not to overwhelm you with pictures of them again. Click below to open a new window with the Saguaro National Park Pictures.

Saguaro National Park

I had to walk slowly so my foot wouldn't hurt. Walking slowly makes my hip hurt. I was ready to sit down for a while by the time I hobbled back to the van. I grabbed a bite to eat at McDonald's and went back to the hotel to take a nap and then pick up Suzanne from the conference. She was already at the hotel, though. They got out early. She wasn't feeling too good, though. Some kind of intestinal bug. Well, we weren't going out to eat and there was still sunshine, so I headed for the Tucson Mountains. They are some small mountains on the west side of Tucson.

I had driven through the Tucson Mountains in January but didn't have time to stop. Now I could check out a trail or two. Now the bad news. I left my camera in the hotel room. Bummer. I had the video camera with me and it will take pictures, but they look so bad I can't stand to let you see them. I'm putting a video on Google Videos but that will look bad, too, since they seem to reduce the resolution. Tough luck. I may not put a link to the video on here until tomorrow. The upload is going very slowly.

I ate at Church's yesterday evening, but Arizona Church's don't have fried okra. What a disappointment. Then I made 2 or 3 trips to the pharmacy as I nursed Suzanne back to health. I must have done a good job because this morning she felt good enough for the drive up to Summerhaven, on Mount Lemmon. I'm still trying to get some good pictures of Mount Lemmon. In the mean time, here are some that I took today.

Mount Lemmon