Fudge Pucker

What a great experience! Camping out in the middle of a secluded desert in beautiful Saguaro National Park just outside of Tucson. Leslie didn't like it much, but I really felt in tune with the earth and nature. You can call me a tree hugger for that comment, but there weren't any trees around, just cacti. I tried hugging one, but it hurt me. What a prick! But I got the point.

Well, once the novelty of "roughing" it wore off, we walked to the bathrooms a few feet a way and brushed our teeth and I took a shower under a water spiggot. That was...interesting. Leslie decided to go extreme outdoorsy and not shower at all. She loves the rugged lifestyle of living off the land. She's already talking about selling the rest of what little belongings we have and finding ourselves in the mountains, eating berries and squirrels and extracting water out of bear dung.

Anyway, today we went to the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum where they had many exhibits about the inhabitants of the Sonora Desert which spreads from Arizona to California and Mehico. There were birds, fish, insects, mountain lions and a lot more.

Next, we made it to Tombstone, the fake city built to replicate the awesome movie of the same name. Or maybe the town came before the movie. We're not sure, but it's not important. What is important are these two things:

1. In every post I write, I intend on making some sort of Kurt Russell connection

2. There was a wonderful shop in Tombstone that sold homemade fugde called Grandma Fudge Puckers

The town was actually pretty cool, even with the heavy tourist-catered gift shops. There was a building called the "Bird Cage" which was once a brothel and it is largely untouched from how it was in the late 1800s. There are still bullets in the wall from that time period. After eating lunch and having a local beer (Nimbus) at Big Nose Kate's Saloon we went to the main event - the O.K. Corral shootout. As time grew closer to high two (it wasn't at noon), dark clouds formed overhead, portending of the chaos that would ensue. It really was movie-esque, but then it actually rained and the gunfight was delayed. I'm not sure how accurate a rain delay in a gunfight is, but we went with it. Once we finally saw the academy award winning performance, we learned that Wyatt Earp seemed to be a little bit of a bully and that most of the outlaws killed were unarmed. But it was still fun even though it cost more than renting the movie.

Next (we did a lot this day), we traversed the winding Arizona roads to Chiricahua National Monument. Along the way we saw a pretty sweet hawk on the side of the road. This park was absolutely amazing. If there was one place I would most like to come back to so far, it's here. The rock formations are unbelievable and the drive to the mountain top is breathtaking. The wooded area at the base of the mountain is also beautiful. The pictures will not do it justice. Leslie could hardly enjoy it however, due to the steep drive up and down the mountain. (A side note from Leslie: I've really learned I have an aversion to driving on steep, winding roads on this trip. I think it's becoming a phobia.)

Finally, after several more hours of driving (in thunderstorms), we crossed into Texas and eventually set up camp in Las Cruces. By this time it is about 12am so we are tired and quickly fall asleep and our adventure continues into our dreams of making the next Kurt Russell reference. Will it be Overboard? Or maybe Captain Ron. Stay tuned to find out.

Picture time! Click here.

The desert really is deserted...

After a fine, fine night's rest at Jake's house, Billy and I took drove around the Tempe area. We checked out Arizona State University and their cool little strip downtown, which is like a High Street for you OSU-ers or an upscale Court Street for you OU-ers. We then went to the Tempe Lake area where we were going to rent a kayak, but remembered it was noon in Arizona, which means the temperature was 2 degrees away from the sun. So we skipped any outdoor activity.

After that, we had a fabulous lunch with Jake at a Mexican restaurant at Tia Rosa's. They had great lunch combinations and an even better cheese crisp (good suggestion, Jake!). It had a great atmosphere - you should check it out if you're in the area.

We then left Jake and Phoenix behind, and made our way to Casa Grande National Monument. This was a fantastic park that has an amazing four-story Native American ruin from a civilization that has been around since the birth of Christ. Who knew? Anyway, this civilization built this amazing ruin and most of it is preserved. It's between Phoenix and Tucson.

A travel tip: Buy a National Parks pass. For $80 a year, you and your family can have free admission to any national park or national monument or forest. This is a real bargain, when you consider the admission to most of the large parks is around $25.

Anyway, we made our way to Tucson, where we were going to camp for the night. We ended up staying in Saguaro National Park. It's not far from downtown Tucson, but we rounded the corner of this mountain and BANG! It was the most beautiful landscape I've ever seen. It was like something out of a movie. These huge saguaro cacti dotted the landscape and the mountains provided the backdrop.
Our campsite was in this park and when we got there, it was pretty much completely empty. There were about 100 sites and we saw maybe 2 occupied other than us and there was no one manning the ranger station (it's off-season in Arizona right now). Now, the forest is pretty deserted. And now the campgound is really deserted. And that makes me really scared. The whole campground was beautiful, but I had visions of a) a serial killer getting us in the middle of the night or b) a wild animal (i.e. coyote, rattlesnake) getting us in the middle of the night. No one would ever find our bodies. I'm sure of it. Did I mention there were no lights and it was completely dark. Yeah.

Anyway, Billy loves that sort of remoteness so I sucked it up and stayed awake pretty much all night waiting for something to creep up and get us.

I forgot to mention that after setting up camp, we drove back into downtown Tucson and had a really fabulous meal at El Charro. El Charro has gotten great reviews in USA Today and other national publications. And the food was fantastic. They're known for their carne seca, which was so tender and flavorful. It was a really funky little restaurant. I believe it's the longest running family restaraunt in Tuscon.

Great day! Great scenery and great food!

I also forgot an excursion from yesterday so I'll just tell you about it now. In between the Grand Canyon and Flagstaff is Wupatki National Monument. It is a ruins of the largest ruins from 800 years ago. By the time we got there, the visitors center was closed and no one was there. But you can still access the ruins so we walked over to it. As we were walking, it was windy and raining, and completely desolate. It was really eerie out there, with the rain and these really old ruins. The wind was whipping around and there was even thunder crashing. Unbelievable. Even more eerie, when we got into the car, the radio was playing Native American chants. Creepy. But very cool.

Click here for today's fantastic photos.