Our Tucson Trip

Thanks for visiting our Blog about our trip to Tucson, Arizona. Since the posts are by date, to start at the beginning, you need to go to the bottom of the menu on the left, starting with "A Hot Idea", which is under February and then work your way upward through the posts by clicking on the "Newer Post" at the bottom of each page. I hope you enjoy our pictures. If you haven't already visited our Wedding Blog and seen the pictures, you can see them at http://pamandbobsweddingpage.blogspot.com/
Also visit our Bar Harbor Honeymoon blog  (I'm still working at that one)

Saying Goodby

Our last day in Tucson. We went out to breakfast and said our goodbyes and then on to the airport. We had a great vacation and we can't wait to come back and do all the things we missed. I want to go back to Tombstone, we didn't get to spend much time there. And Bob wants to go to the sky nights show at Kitt Peak because we had to cancel because not everyone could go that night. And sometime I want to go to the Grand Canyon, but that's pretty far away from Tucson, at least for this trip. It was nice seeing Bob's family and meeting Margorie's daughter, Martha and Martha's daughter, Haley and Haley's Dad, Jorge. Hopefully we will get to see some of them in Las Vegas this fall at Carol and Alex's wedding. We left the Tucson Airport at 1:55pm and got into Chicago at 6:10pm. We grabbed a hamburger in the airport and left Chicago at 7:35pm and arrived in Boston at 10:45pm. We caught the bus back to Dover and Lyzz and Nate picked us up and took us home to Acton, where we crashed into bed. I got up a few hours later and went into work by noon. I was really tired that night. Poor Bob had to drive Nate to Limestone (6 hours north) to JobCorp the next day. And then he turned around and drove back. I met him in Portland and we had a late night snack at Denny's and on to Acton, where he crashed. It was a crazy schedule, but we had a lot of fun.

Old Tucson Studios

Today we drove out to Old Tuscon Studios,

where they filmed many movies and t.v. shows like Three Amigos, Tombstone, Little House on the Prairie, High Chapparel, Bonanza, and Rio Bravo to name a few.

 We saw some gunfights

 and saw what building were in movies - this mission building was in Tombstone and Three Amigos, as well as some other movies.  They kept changing it to whatever they needed over the years.

 and then I got to ride my first horse! Bob and I rode through the desert on horse with a name - his was Oreo and mine was Dot.

 It was interesting seeing all the buildings and memorabilia.

 In 1995 there was a fire and they lost 40% of the buildings, so some of what we saw were reproductions, but it was cool anyway. Later that night we went to a restaurant called "Little Mexico" with everyone as it was our last night together and I had the biggest chimichanga (I have been told I say it wrong, so I probably spelled it wrong too) and it was really yummy.

Reid Park Zoo

After our morning at the Botanical Gardens we had a quick picnic and then we went on to the Zoo, which was not far away. It's actually down the street from the house where Bob grew up.  He used to go there all the time and visit the elephant, who would smack him on the head when he would open his hand that had no peanuts in it. 

This isn't the same elephant but he still likes them.  Here he is with a bronze statue dedicated to the late local veternarian that was well known in the area.

There we saw animals from Asia and Africa. I was surprised that they didn't have any prairie dogs but Bob said that they don't like to compete with the Desert Museum, that's where the local animals are.

 But we did get to see a baby zebra and some real pretty peacocks and some giraffes.

The zoo had natural habitats and was quite cool in the shade of the trees.  This was the most trees I've seen since I've been in Arizona!

It was a small zoo, but it was nice and we had fun.

A polar bear in Arizona...I think he's the one that wrote to Al Gore about global warming!

Botanical Gardens

         Today we went to the Botanical Gardens.  Here is Bob with the chili pepper decorations on the sign.

The slats on the window shutters here are made out of the inside woody remains of a sagauro cactus when it dies.  They never waste anything around here.

                        They had a butterfly exhibit in a small greenhouse building.

  We all spent a lot of time chasing around butterfies trying to catch a picture.

I love blue butterflies but this poor one looks  like it's been in a fight.

                                                    Bob loves taking pictures of butterflies.

 We have almost as many pictures of butterflies as we do hummingbirds from the Desert Museum.

I got to be a butterfly for a day!

   Outside they had many cacti and trees and some flowers, but not many.

This is an ugly beast!

                 They had some really pretty tile benches and fountains.

We heard songbirds in the tree.  Bob caught a picture of this beautiful cardinal.

After visiting the giftshop, where Bob bought me a pretty lizard decoration,

we went to Reid Park and had a picnic and then went to the Zoo

Kartchner Caverns

Today we drove out to Kartchner Caverns, which is in Benson. First we went on the Big Room tour. We rode a tram

up to the entrance of the cave and then walked though three sets of big refrigerator doors in the side of a mountain to enter into the Big Room

that was full of all these neat limestone and calcite formations that they named all after food, like bacon, turnips, soda straws, popcorn. I guess they must have been hungry! After the tour we went back down on the tram and had a picnic

 and looked at the beautiful Whetstone Mountains. It was a sunny but mild day and the sky was blue with puffy white clouds.

Then we went on the other tour to explore the Rotunda/Throne Room that has the largest column formation in Arizona, nicknamed Kubla Kahn. At that point they sat us down on benchs and while music played, the lights played on all the different formations. It was so cool.

This is me in front of a replica of a Great Sloth of which they found bones in the cave.

The cave is under this mountain

After we left, we drove to the town of Tombstone.

Tombstone

We got to the town of Tombstone late in the day. 

A lot of things were just closing.  I hope we get to come back here again sometime.  It's a really cool town.

This was where Wyatt Earp and Doc Holiday had the famous shootout at the O.K. Corral

 and the famous haunted Birdcage Theater.

This is REAL tumblin' tumbleweed!

There were a lot of western shops and Bob bought a new black suede vest.  Here Bob is looking at hand tooled leather holsters.

                                                     Then we drove up to the town of Bisbee,

                                                               where we saw the Lavendar Pitt,

which is the largest open pit copper mine.

This mountain is orange because of the copper deposits.

  If we had gotten there earlier, we might have been able to go though one of the mines. It was getting late so then we drove back through Sierra Vista where we ate dinner at Applebees.

I didn't take this picture, I found it on the internet, but it was really pretty.  Although I never got to see a true vibrant sunset, I did see the different shades of blues in the mountains.  These are the mountains in Sierra Vista.  It was getting dark by the time we drove though here.