One of the more interesting exhibits we saw during our visit to the Desert Museum in Tucson last weekend was the hummingbird house. It's a large aviary that visitors are welcome to walk through. Airlock style doors and heavy chain curtains at entrance and exit help keep the residents from escaping- though some still do and can be spotted flitting ( Read more... )

Tucson, AZ - Mon, 27 May 2019. 2:30pm.

After a short hike through desert canyons this morning we drove further west, around the far side of Tucson Mountain, to the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum. It's a mostly outdoor museum about the nature of the Sonora Desert- including everything from plants and animals to geology ( Read more... )

Tucson, AZ - Mon, 27 May 2019. 11am.

This morning we checked out of our hotel in Tucson instead of lingering to go for another several laps in the lazy river pool. That's mostly because the weather today is unusually cool- it was actually in the high 60s (20-21° C) when we stepped outside after breakfast, and the forecast for the day has ( Read more... )

Tucson, AZ - Sun, 26 May 2019. 8pm.

We finished up our hike at Seven Falls this afternoon, at the hottest time of the day. Fortunately it was "only" in the high 80s (31-32° C), unusually cool for this time of year. I'm glad we decided not to go yesterday when it was 10° F hotter. Afterwards we ate a late lunch at a local hamburger restaurant, ( Read more... )

Tucson, AZ - Sun, 26 May 2019. 3pm.

Today we hiked up Bear Canyon to Seven Falls in Tucson. This is a trek we wanted to do when we visited Tucson last year, but couldn't because I fell ill with food poisoning. Then I planned to do this hike yesterday right after we arrived in Tucson on this trip but we had to make a side-trip to replace ( Read more... )

Tucson, AZ - Sat, 25 May 2019. 8pm.

After the drama replacing Hawk's lost prescription medications today we decided to take it easy for the rest of the day. That seemed like a good idea, anyway, as part of the reason we picked the Hilton Garden Inn in an otherwise dull area near the airport is that it has a lazy river pool.


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Saturday morning, less than 14 hours after I arrived home from the last of Four Trips in Two Weeks, I was already planning our next trip. Next weekend is Memorial Day weekend in the US. We pretty much always go somewhere on holiday weekends, especially in the warmer months. Saturday morning we made our choice and I started booking reservations to ( Read more... )

"$3 gas coming to a station near year," warns a news report I saw yesterday (CNN Money article 5/2). Only deep down in the article does it mention that much of the U.S. already has such prices for gas. Here in the SF Bay Area I've recently been paying $3.60/gallon for regular grade gasoline- and that's at discount stations. Major brand-name ( Read more... )

We got home from Tucson late Sunday night. Yeah, here it is Wednesday morning and I've just finished catching up on the backlog of posts about our quick getaway. We were on the ground for barely 48 hours in Arizona.

Of course, the reason it was even 48 hours was that our flight home was delayed. Of course. This time around it was 45-50 minutes. ( Read more... )

Tucson, AZ - Sunday, 29 Apr 2018, 4pm

We threw in the towel on Saguaro National Park this afternoon. We could only find a few hours of interesting stuff to do yesterday on the east side, likewise today on the west side. After a few hours everything looked the same and we were done with it ( Read more... )