A Week Out West

Arizona, Part 4: Tucson

Thanks to Jake's book on Arizona geology, by the time we reached Tucson on Friday evening, I had learned more than I ever thought I would about the tectonic plates, mountains, volcanoes, & other tongue-twisting features of the Arizona landscape, had become remarkably adept at pronouncing the names of all those eras & eons, had made up a few pronunciations for words like "gneiss," and had discovered that if all else fails, I might have a future as a book-on-tape narrator. The most surprising part of it all was not how interesting I found it (which I did), but that Jake managed to insist that he was not actually sick of hearing my voice :-P

After going to dinner with Ellen, Jake and Maya (the adorable puppy who quite literally only decided she liked me when they dropped me off in Tucson) headed back toward Phoenix. The Tucson leg of my trip was just as much fun as the first half - especially because I hadn't seen Ellen in years and we had plenty to chatter about :)

Some sight-seeing highlights:
-DeGrazia Gallery in the Sun (the beautifully maintained gallery/studio/former home/grounds of the artist Ted DeGrazia)
-Old Town Artisans (a quaint collection of shops, galleries, and restaurants in the El Presidio district of downtown Tucson)
-Arizona Inn (amazing landscaping & buildings that just go on and on and on ...)
-Sabino Canyon (great hiking ... regardless of which trail you end up on! (we somehow managed to end up on 2 different trails, neither of which were the ones we'd intended to hike!))

Ellen & me oustide the DeGrazia Gallery in the Sun:

More beautiful cacti:

The view from Ellen's porch (did I mention I wish I could have just stayed there forever???):

There were these nifty colorful flowers made from pop cans hanging around the outside of the DeGrazia gallery, so taking a page out of their book, Ellen and I tried our hand at making some flowers for her porch. A surprising amount of time (and some paint-speckled hands) later, we'd finished 7 or 8 flowers :) This one was my favorite:


And several of Ellen's creations: