Week Nine: Tucson, AZ

This weekend was full of adventures! 

Saturday

On Saturday we got up and decided to head south.  We loaded up the truck and started driving towards Nogales. 

On the way we stopped at a tourist info place and chatted with a very helpful lady for a while about the area.  She gave us some brochures about things to do and we landed on a hike along the Santa Cruz river. 

We hiked a portion of the Anza Trail. 

The Anza Trail is the route Juan Bautista de Anza traveled leading a group of 240 people on the first overland route from Nogales to San Francisco.

It is 1200 miles long.

We started at the Anza Tumacacori Trailhead. The plan was to hike 4 miles up to the Tubac Trailhead and then turn around and go back.  We got about 1 and 1/2 miles into our hike and the trail crossed the river.  The river was quite active and the bridge looked like it had washed away to the other side of the river bank. 

We tried to cross it in several designated spots to no avail.  So we turned around and walked back thinking we’d just have a 3 mile hike. 

The trail seemed to continue on past where we parked so we kept going. 

We came up on another gate with 3.5 miles of the trail on private land, but available to the public. 

Steve and I took that trail for a while and it was really beautiful, wandering along the flowing river.  It was interesting to see some old cars, from the 50’s piled up in some spots. I had read once that old cars had been used for erosion control and wondered if that was the case here.

While is was definitely cooler by the river we were getting quite hot and decided to head back to the truck and figure out some lunch.  

You can check out some photos and a video of our hike HERE.

We ate lunch at an authentic diner from the 50’s.  It was really quaint, lots of unique decor, and the food was typical sandwich type stuff.  The music playing was Spanish and we were certainly the only ones in the diner that didn’t speak Spanish.

We were so close to the border!  It was exciting and really made me miss Leah and Corrin!  Even though I am probably the same distance from them as we were in Prescott, being so close to the border makes me feel like I can just pop over and see them. 

After lunch we headed to Nogales. 

I have wanted to visit the city for awhile just to “see what we can see”. 

The city is literally divided in half with the border wall.  You can see down the middle of the city. We were on one side of the wall and could gaze into Nogales Mexico. 

We had some desert at a little ice cream shop.  The counter person didn’t speak English and had to get someone to help us out.  I landed on trying their fresas con crema (fresh strawberries with cream) and Steve got a pistachio waffle cone.  We enjoyed our treats! 

Unfortunately, we didn’t bring our passports and decided that we wouldn’t try to cross the border without them. 

So, we headed back north then headed west along the Old Ruby road.   This road was mostly unpaved (about 26 miles) and was very narrow and windy.  The views were AMAZING!  We saw rolling hills and towering buttes, it was like a desert oasis with all the greenery. 

We came upon an old ghost town called Ruby.  We could see it in the distance as we were driving around the winding roads and wanted to check it out.  Unfortunately the town was closed by the time we got there.  I guess it is privately owned now and you can visit but between the hours of 9-5.  There is a permit required, but the sign said you could purchase one at the caretakers. 

I was pretty bummed, but now we have another place to go see someday! 

We decided to try out our tent again.  

The lady we spoke with at the tourist information place told us about a remote lake in the area.  So we continued on some more dirt roads and arrived just before sunset at Arivaca Lake.  This lake has fishing, kayaking, and dispersed camping. 

After finding a prime spot atop the lake with an amazing view we set up the tent in the back of Steve’s truck. 

We snacked on some munchies we had in the truck and watched the sun set.  After it got dark the stars were out in force!  So incredibly beautiful. 

We headed to bed eventually and got all situated in our little tent.  It was actually much more comfortable in the back of the truck than on the ground last weekend. 

Once we had fallen asleep we heard some thunder claps!  Steve had the forethought to get a tarp all ready just in case we got rain, so once it started he quickly got up and covered our tent.  We heard the rain for a while, it was very cozy in our little tent with the rain coming down. 

Sunday

We stayed dry and slept well and woke up to clear skies and a beautiful Sunday morning.  We enjoyed communing with God in the still of the morning out in creation. 

I had brought some camp coffee supplies with us before we left and we enjoyed a cup of coffee together before breaking camp. 

After tearing down the tent we hopped in the truck and headed back towards Tucson. 

Hunger overtook us and we found a cute cafe that served crepes and had wonderful latte’s.  I got a banana and Nutella crepe and Steve had an egg and pesto one. 

Once back at the campground we took showers, got our groceries for the week, spent the remainder of the day relaxing. 

What a fun weekend we had. 

As we were hiking on Saturday in the midst of the beautiful surroundings I comment to Steve how good it felt to be alive.  Things like this are so life giving to me.  Being out in creation, appreciating things from a grand scale to the minute, moving my body, feeling the breeze, smelling new smells, the sunshine on my skin. 

I hope everyone can do the things that make them feel good to be alive!