Seeking the Sun

For those of you who may be jealous of the great weather we normally have here in Sedona, I will say that it was so lousy the past number of days that we headed to Tucson to find the sun.
So, Judy, Jacques, Claire and I decided on the spur of the moment to head south. The road from Sedona towards Phoenix is normally very beautiful with great mountain views and plenty of cactus. On Tuesday, it was raining and snowing very hard and the huge semis threw tons of water on our windshield making it difficult to see anything. But once we made it through Phoenix we could see the sky brightening a bit towards Tucson.
From our hotel, we walked to a well known Mexican restaurant called El Charro. The portions were huge and we walked out thinking we would never have to eat again. That thought ended with our free full breakfast at the hotel.
From there we went to one of my favorite places, the San Xavier del Bac Mission on the nearby Indian reservation. This is an absolutely beautiful, white-washed mission that was once the northern most jewel of a string of Spanish missions in Mexico. It has undergone a major restauration by a number of local and international artisans and is in great shape now. It is only a few miles outside of Tucson and is always worth the trip to visit.


Next we found our way to the Sonoran Desert Museum. This is an outdoor combination botanical garden and zoo. It is loaded with all types of plant life and many animals that are indigineous to the area. It was very crowded with a combination of school kids and old timers (I guess we are in the latter group). This "museum" is in the middle of the Saguaro National Park which has millions of those giant cacti that we saw so often in the old cowboy movies. I loved it. Another highlight was a demonstration of the habits of Harris Hawks who are the only raptors that actually live and hunt as families or teams. It was fascinating as well as very informative.