Breaking camp in the morning, we blasted south through the heart of Arizona to Tucson, tolling the miles with the audiobook of Comfort Food by Kate Jacobs- well written and capable of taking one's mind off crazy drivers, ubiquitous road construction and the glut of fast food chains that line the highways of the west.
The view from our hotel just outside downtown Tucson, the Omni Tucson National Golf Resort, was a mix of startlingly vibrant rolling greens dotted with sand traps that were ironic by the sweeping desert and jagged Catalina mountains that wrapped around the valley. By far the swankiest of all our hotels, we were the youngest guests by about 20 years, a guess we assessed by the number of jerky-tanned, cigar chomping middle-aged men clad in Tommy Bahama shorts and scintillating gold jewlery flanked by their bleach-haired, surgery-enhanced wives/girlfriends/mistresses. Not that any of that could detract from the opulent beauty and grace of the place. We checked in, and immediately decided to stay an extra night, not only as a break from the road in a restful resort (after the dirt of the canyon's campground) but also to buy us more time with our newly married friends, Meg and Bryan, who's wedding we'd attended in Maine mere weeks before.
We caught up with them at their apartment in Tucson, and made our way to a popular local old-timey restaurant, El Charro, known for their traditional Mexican cuisine and long tequila list.
A few more drinks at a local bar on the strip populated with the bike-riding students of the local university, and it was time for bed, as Meg and Bryan had school the next morning (she in Masters of Public Health, he in the doctoral program for Hydrogeology- a right pair of smarties!).
Em and I slept in late, the large king bed a needed respite after tenting it before. We rose as the temperature did, slowly and without purpose. While waiting for school to end for our friends, we lounged by the pool, Andy occasionally dipping and reading the paper in the shallow end, Emily and Moose reading People and US under the fan in the small cabanas lining the pool. A late lunch of club sandwiches and chicken fingers completed the morning, before we headed into town to go for a drive into the mountains with Meg and Bryan.
The broad valley below the Catalinas bcame dotted with lights as the sun fell rapidly away, and we descended back the winding trail to town in search of pizza. As it was, we discovered Mama's Pizza, and the "large" pizza that we could barely fit into the back of the car- the diameter was in the vicinity of 2ft, making it a pizza fit for 9, to be consumed by 4.
We enjoyed the takeout and beers back in the hotel, talking and laughing until it was finally time for the scholars and the travelers alike to retire for the night.
1 comment:
FANTASTIC desert photos!
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