Tucson, The Giant Saguaro and the City Mountain Park
We are so excited. This is one of the highlights of the trip, a visit to the Sonoran Desert, home to Saguaro cactus. Those are those huge cacti you see in movies, in commercials and in cartoons, you’d think they are common, you see them so often, but they only grow in a very limited area of the United States and Mexico, and no where else in the world. We want to see them.
I’m not fond of cactus for my own garden; I don’t like prickly dry things, but I am a huge fan of cactus in it’s native environment, where it looks so right. In the midst of aridity, it is green and living, and one of God’s imaginative creations, perfect. The Saguara, and the other cactus, so many of them, are awe-inspiring.
I tried to limit what I posted here, we took so many photos. We could have stayed here for hours. There are hiking trails, and the weather early in the morning is cool, the sky a deep, cloudless blue. The morning light is our friend, and these cactus are amazing. Each one so different, and so interesting.
You can see this Saguaro forest stretching up high on the mountain
I called the one the “Praise the Lord Cactus” because to me, he looks like an evangelistic cactus 🙂
Look how fat they get! And how sometimes they are fatter at the top than at the bottom. In fact, they are often fatter at the top than at the bottom; the bottoms seem more vulnerable, like to rot or damage of all kinds.
It’s Spring, and many of the cacti are blooming!
I wanted to do this once in my lifetime; now I think I want to do it more than once in my lifetime 🙂 I want to come again in the Spring, when the temperatures are temperate, and you can see the blooms and experience this beauty without the scorching heat.
Sunset Over Tucson
I miss all the Kuwait sunrises, and the daily photos I would post, every sunrise different. Tonight, as we head home from Zeman’s Ethiopian restaurant in Tucson, I catch the sun setting in Tucson:
Tucson, and the Great Saguaros, and Zeman’s
On our way to the interstate from Tombstone, we see our first giant Saguaro, one of the reasons we wanted to stop in Tucson. It is awe-inspiring, just growing in someone’s front yard, about two stories high. Did you know that these giant cactus only grow in a very limited environment? Tomorrow, we are going to the Saguaro National Park; we can hardly wait.
Meanwhile, we check in to our very odd Residence Inn. It is near the Tucson airport, and it looks like a resort, but when we go to use the pool, it isn’t even filled, it is being repaired. Repaired? It looks brand new.
It is in an area with a lot of other new looking hotels, near the airport, but while in other places there are usually a lot of restaurants around the airport, in Tucson, there are few, and not ones we care about.
Using our Trip Advisor research, and our Google Maps App, we find Zeman’s. Zeman’s is Ethiopian, and gets great reviews. We love Ethiopian food, and because most of what we order is vegetarian, we also know it is really good for us.
It is an easy drive into the big city, and we find Zeman’s right where it is supposed to be. We are warmly welcomed when we go in, and take a look at the menu.
They do something we really like; they have a combination where you can order one meat and two vegetables. We ordered two combinations, as did most of the other customers, and it was delicious!
We really loved the ground beef, which was exotic and spicy, and the collard greens, also exotic and spicy, but with different spices. I always think of Vargese’s Cutting for Stone when I eat Ethiopian food. When I read it, I felt like I had grown up in Ethiopia.
It’s in the university part of town, and most of the customers appeared to be students and faculties who enjoy good eats at reasonable prices. Zeman’s is exactly that. Tucson is blessed to have such a delightful restaurant. I understand there is another Zeman’s and even a third one in the planning. 🙂
Tombstone, Arizona and The OK Corral
Tombstone, Arizona is hilarious. This is an entrance to the church; they have a great sense of humor about themselves and have turned a American cowboy legend into a cash cow:
There are all kinds of characters, pretending to be old-timey people, and stagecoaches. If you’ve any knowledge of Cowboy lore, you will know that stagecoaches carried mail and payrolls, as well as passengers, and were natural targets for robberies.
As we walk into town, we come to a group of cowboys telling people the big gun fight re-enactments will start shortly, and to buy our tickets at Wyatt’s coffee shop and go next door to the ‘saloon.’ At this point, we hear a volley of gunshots, loud bangs that go on for about 22 seconds (LOL) and so we ask “What was that?”
“Oh, that was some other gunfight. It’s over now. This one is the real one.”
We bought tickets for this ‘real’ one, and as soon as it starts, we almost groan. Really, it’s just three guys and a room, and while they act out several saloon gunfights – gun fights that really happened – they are total hams. And Tombstone is famous for the gunfight at the OK Corral, which must have been what ‘that other gunfight’ must have been.
One one hand, I applaud their creativity, creating an attraction out of next to nothing, making some money and providing some entertainment. On the other hand, by the third gunfight, it all seemed very repetitive, especially since the same actors were doing all the parts. We were rolling our eyes, but most of the audience seemed to enjoy it.
This is where you buy your tickets.
This is where the Gunfight at the OK Corral took place:
On our way out, we stopped again in Benson to have soft ice cream, and I had pomegranate ice cream.
I can’t imagine we will ever go back to Tombstone; it is fun, but once is enough. Unless, of course, our grandchildren want to go. There are a lot of people who are living there in trailer villages, maybe for the climate and because they can do part time odd jobs in this tourist attraction town. If it weren’t for the tourists, this town wouldn’t exist.
Benson, AZ and the Horseshoe Cafe
Sometimes your schedule doesn’t work out exactly. We had planned on lunch in Tombstone, but when we leave the interstate at Benson, we are too hungry to drive the additional miles and look for a place in Benson. There are a lot of cars and motorbikes parked at the Horseshoe Cafe, so we decide to give it a try. We have to wait about 20 minutes for a table; it’s Sunday morning and everyone in Benson has come from church to have breakfast.
Once we got inside, we could see that this was a really popular place. People just kept coming.
I think I had a Reuben, which was just average. AdventureMan had a breakfast – portions are huge! They served some of the biggest biscuits I have ever seen! We were already conspicuous by being “not-from-around-here” and I didn’t want to draw more attention to ourselves by photographing the meals. Sometimes I can get away with it but everyone was seated too closely together, and our table was to central.
Some places attract bikers like a magnet. Tombstone is one of them. There were a whole group of bikers parked in front; my impression was that they take temporary jobs around Tombstone as cowboy-actors.
A New Day, New Mexico, Tombstone and Tucson, AZ
The sky is blue and the air is sparkling clean as day dawns in El Paso, TX, which we made a stop on our journey in honor of a series we are totally addicted to called The Bridge. I understand it has been cancelled, but it’s premise was that there was a lot of horrible crime in Juarez because law enforcement authorities on both sides had given incentives to keep the ugliest crimes on the Mexican side of The Bridge, and US drug enforcement personnel at the highest levels protected drug flow into our country through tunnels and trucking. Fascinating, although in truth, sometimes AdventureMan and I looked at each other and asked “What just happened?”
We have a short driving day today, but a stop at Tombstone, the site of the shoot-out at the OK Corral. Well, not really the OK Corral but the alley next to it. We read Mary Doria Russel’s book Doc, about Doc Holliday, and then Epitaph, her book about Wyatt Earp, and they made it so real, we wanted to visit just to pay tribute to Mary Doria Russel’s research and wonderfully readable books, which take legendary characters and makes them fully human.
Up early, to catch the sunrise reflecting off the windows of El Paso:
We feel so safe, the parking lot is full of Homeland Security personnel vehicles. Although it is a Sunday morning, many are eating breakfast and heading out to guard the border:
It is a totally different day from the rainy mess we drove through all day from San Antonio to El Paso. The sky is so blue and the air is so clear and we are thoroughly enjoying this day:
As we leave Texas, AdventureMan points out that the underside of the overpasses are painted in Southwestern colors, and there are graphic designs on the pillars. The Highways are beautiful! Someone put a little extra thought into making them memorable.
There is a cross gleaming high on a bare mountain, and I am trying to imagine how they got it up there, and how they engineered it so it would be stable and stay there:
Welcome to New Mexico!
As we are paralleling the border, there is another security stop:
We really wanted to buy something at this shop, but the baskets were all made in Pakistan! We have Pakistani baskets! I finally left with just a CD of new-age sort of Indian mystical music, soulful flutes, shaking bones, you know the kind, to put us in the Southwest frame of mind. It’s one of the few things we bought for ourselves on the trip.
A Dreary Day on One Of My Favorite Routes: I-10 San Antonio to El Paso
I was eager to drive this leg of our journey; I drove it the last time. AdventureMan had a cold and thought it was boring, but I loved the colors and the dryness and it was very much one of those zen zone kind of things for me. I-10 in West Texas is easy driving. Or it was the last time.
This day, it is an anomalous day in San Antonio, it varies only from heavy rain to downpour. As we hit the road, and I have to say, life is so much easier with Google Maps, and now that I’ve discovered the voice, I don’t even have to nag when I am navigating, she just tells us where to turn, and most of the time, gives us plenty of warning, tells us when there is going to be a left exit, tells us which lane we need to be in when exiting, etc. IF, on the rare occasion (LOL) we miss the right turn, she is very patient. She doesn’t even say “recalculating,” she just gets on with it, getting us to where we need to be. It takes a lot of stress out of driving in strange cities.
We wanted to get on the road early, as this is going to be one of our long days driving, and wouldn’t you know, the long day is this messy, rainy day?
We really need some breakfast to fortify us for this drive, all this rain, all this low-visibility and all these racing trucks with sheeting water spilling off the tops. At one point, I am trying to pass a truck on a curve and AdventureMan is saying “Go! Go! Go!” and I can’t see a thing and I am on a curve and I have to drop back behind the splashing truck until I can get a straight-away and a clean pass.
Thank God we find the Flag Stop, in Bjorn, just outside San Antonio.
AdventureMan and I diverge. I had a great breakfast, very traditional, eggs, bacon, and coffee. The coffee was surprisingly good, and the eggs and bacon were fine. Filling, tasty, cooked pretty well. I mean, it’s breakfast, it’s a truck stop. He had biscuits and gravy, and it did not meet his standards.
On this route, there are a lot of areas that are very rural, without a lot of stopping places for gas. At one point, when we were beginning to get nervous, we came to a gas station but the gas was marked way up. We thought we’d drive a little to see if there was a station in the town, and quickly came to a sign that said “no further services” meaning NO GAS. So we went back to the highway robbery place and bought gas, happy to have gas. We ran into a couple just coming from the South by Southwest Festival in Austin, heading on toward Los Angeles. We almost got run off the road entering El Paso by the Eagles road van, with an aggressive woman driver, also coming from South by Southwest.
About four hours later, hour after hour of driving rains and speeding, splashing trucks, we found a town big enough to have a place to eat. We searched for one that was not a chain, and we found the Bienvenidos. I loved the exterior.
Once again, we diverged. AdventureMan thought the food was very good; I thought it was just OK. I didn’t even bother taking photos of my two greasy tacos. Service was fast and friendly, and there were a lot of local people there, so maybe I just ordered the wrong thing.
Just wanted you to get a feel for the road conditions. The good news is, as we got close to El Paso, the sun broke through and we had clear visibility finding our hotel.
The Emily Morgan and The Alamo in San Antonio, TX
This trip is checking off a lot of blocks for us. Not only do we like exploring new venues, we also like experiencing specialty hotels, and since we are going to make a pilgrimage to The Alamo, we want to stay in a nearby hotel.
I checked Trip Advisor, and other resources. I read and read and read. There are some older hotels with character, and their reviews also feature words like “cramped” “musty” and “seen better days.” Then, there is the Emily Morgan.
The Emily Morgan is elegant, and the Emily Morgan looks right over The Alamo.
Why visit the Alamo? Here is what Wikipedia says about the Battle of The Alamo:
The Battle of the Alamo (February 23 – March 6, 1836) was a pivotal event in the Texas Revolution. Following a 13-day siege, Mexican troops under President General Antonio López de Santa Anna launched an assault on the Alamo Mission near San Antonio de Béxar (modern-day San Antonio, Texas, United States), killing all of the Texian defenders. Santa Anna’s cruelty during the battle inspired many Texians—both Texas settlers and adventurers from the United States—to join the Texian Army. Buoyed by a desire for revenge, the Texians defeated the Mexican Army at the Battle of San Jacinto, on April 21, 1836, ending the revolution.
Several months previously, Texians had driven all Mexican troops out of Mexican Texas. About 100 Texians were then garrisoned at the Alamo. The Texian force grew slightly with the arrival of reinforcements led by eventual Alamo co-commanders James Bowie and William B. Travis. On February 23, approximately 1,500 Mexicans marched into San Antonio de Béxar as the first step in a campaign to retake Texas. For the next 10 days the two armies engaged in several skirmishes with minimal casualties. Aware that his garrison could not withstand an attack by such a large force, Travis wrote multiple letters pleading for more men and supplies, but fewer than 100 reinforcements arrived there.
In the early morning hours of March 6, the Mexican Army advanced on the Alamo. After repulsing two attacks, the Texians were unable to fend off a third attack. As Mexican soldiers scaled the walls, most of the Texian soldiers withdrew into interior buildings. Defenders unable to reach these points were slain by the Mexican cavalry as they attempted to escape. Between five and seven Texians may have surrendered; if so, they were quickly executed. Most eyewitness accounts reported between 182 and 257 Texians died, while most historians of the Alamo agree that around 600 Mexicans were killed or wounded. Several noncombatants were sent to Gonzales to spread word of the Texian defeat. The news sparked both a strong rush to join the Texian army and a panic, known as “The Runaway Scrape”, in which the Texian army, most settlers, and the new Republic of Texas government fled from the advancing Mexican Army.
Within Mexico, the battle has often been overshadowed by events from the Mexican–American War of 1846–48. In 19th-century Texas, the Alamo complex gradually became known as a battle site rather than a former mission. The Texas Legislature purchased the land and buildings in the early part of the 20th century and designated the Alamo chapel as an official Texas State Shrine. The Alamo is now “the most popular tourist site in Texas”.[5] The Alamo has been the subject of numerous non-fiction works beginning in 1843. Most Americans, however, are more familiar with the myths spread by many of the movie and television adaptations,[6] including the 1950s Disney miniseries Davy Crockett and John Wayne’s 1960 film The Alamo.
There is a hint in that last sentence, just about every American around our age grew up singing about Davy Crockett, wearing Davy Crockett coonskin caps, and seeing Davy Crockett in the movies. We watched, horrified, as the wicked Santa Ana overpowered the Texans, including – Davy Crockett. Be careful, parents, what your children watch; some of these movies have a lasting impact. So here we are, a million years down the road, going to see the Alamo.
Our GoogleMap app guides us right into the heart of town, where we have to figure out how to be going the right way on Houston street to get to the valet service, because parking is a big problem around the Alamo/Riverwalk site.
It all turns out to be a lot easier than we thought it was going to be, we get checked in and our bags are taken to our room and it is glorious. It feels like coming home, it’s spacious, with bath robes and a lovely big bathroom and windows from wall to wall overlooking the Alamo:
This is our view of the Alamo:
It had been raining, and after the rain the air was that clean, clear air that almost sparkles. I loved all the sights from our window:
AdventureMan explored the Alamo. I have blisters on my feet from our huge walk around Benson-Rio Grande Valley Park, so I enjoy the big bathtub and a lovely cup of coffee and watch The Alamo from my birds eye perch. Now that we know about the Emily Morgan, we can come back with the grand-kids for a good visit on a sunnier day. 🙂
The Emily Morgan is a hotel you want to come back to. It has this great location by the Alamo, but also right by the San Antonio Riverwalk area, and a lot of great shopping and dining. The Emily Morgan also has special rates for military. 🙂
For those of you who did not grow up with Davy Crockett, you can listen the Ballad of Davy Crockett here:
Security Check
I’ve never seen this before in the United States. We used to go through checks like this in Germany, in Doha, in Kuwait, but not in the United States. This trip, we went through several, all across our southern border.
All the trucks, and all the cars, pulled over to go through security checks, dogs sniffing the cars, men going through an entire truck here and there, or having a family stand to one side as they thoroughly inspect the car.
I love our retired military id’s.
The sign on the left tells us they have caught more than 7,000 illegal immigrants so far this year, and have confiscated more than 12,000 something. . . dollars worth of goods? Individual goods, like cars? I know if you get caught doing something illegal, you lose your property, even if it is a car or a house.
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