Day 14 - Tucson, AZ

 
It was a tough day for the road warriors. Phil drove the 4 hour trip from El Paso, TX to Tucson, AZ. We arrived about 2:30 and decided to visit the Sagauro National Park before we checked into our hotel. The west end of the park, which is the side we planned to visit, is all open. There is no main entrance. After following GPS directions that took us in and out of the park several times at different locations, we stopped at a local gas station for directions. We finally got to the visitor center, got a map, and chose the path we were going to take, a 4.3 mile hike. We met an 84 and 87 year old couple with their 2 grown daughters at the start of our hike. They were 3/4 of the way through the hike from their starting point and the elders couldn't continue. We gave them water and let them rest against our truck while their daughters finished the hike to get to their car and come back for the elders and we started our hike. Less than a mile into the hike we couldn't agree about where we were or the direction we had taken. We went back to the start to see where we may have gone wrong. Our patience was thin. A little over a mile up the trail we encountered another couple from Minnesota, Bryan and Melissa Smith. Together we figured our where we were and our potential paths back to our truck, only one of which was viable: the way we came, and that was a miserable, beach-sandy, path and it would soon be getting dark. Bryan and Melissa were parked nearby. They offered to drive us back to our car and they really saved the day!! Thank you Bryan and Melissa! We did get some beautiful pictures of the Saguaro National Park.

Saguaro (pronounced saw-rah-ro) are the huge cactus you see with the arms, like all the cartoons depict cacti.

We learned a new word today, petroglyphs. Those are the drawings carved in stone over 1000 years ago. These rocks shows some of those images. 

Explanation of petroglyphs

Looking out from the trail over the Saguaro National Park. This is where we met Bryan and Melissa.

Many different cacti in Saguaro Park



The only cactus we saw in bloom at this time of year.

This gives you an idea how big these cacti are!

There are lots of dude ranches around here. Maybe we make that a separate trip next time!










 

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