Today we said adios to Cochise County and headed up I 10 toward Tucson. We are staying at Catalina State Park which is about a dozen miles north and east of Tucson near the community of Oro Valley.
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| Interstate 10 heading toward Tucson. |
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| Downtown Tucson |
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| Entrance to Catalina State Park |
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| Our site! |
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| The evening glow on the Santa Catalina mountains. |
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| Nice sunset! |
Monday, November 25
Today is supposed to be the warmest day of the week so we figured we'd try to get in a road trip up to Mt Lemmon. At just over 9,000 feet we knew it would be cold up there and we'd heard they had snow last week. It turns out the weather is definitely going to turn colder and Friday they are forecasting over two feet of snow up there.
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| Heading toward Mount Lemmon |
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| We quickly gain elevation. |
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| Rugged mountains rise above the desert floor. |
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| Some interesting rock formations along the way. |
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| A very twisty road and oh so beautiful. |
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| I just had to include this photo of a sign along the way. Notice it state s the distance to Banff, BC. Sorry BC, you can't have it! We'll keep it in Alberta! |
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| We keep getting higher. |
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| We hit the end of the road. What is all that white stuff? |
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| A good place for a ski hill! |
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| We stopped for lunch at the ski hill. The temp kept getting colder. Only 41F on the way down the hill. It was about 70F back in Tucson. |
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| They were doing some prescribed burns along the road. They were burning off some underbrush fuel to help minimize the effects from any forest fire that might flare up. |
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| At one of the pullouts we spotted this Tarantula. That makes two now we've seen this year. |
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| I call this one 'Man and Wife'. |
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| Balanced rocks. |
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| What a view! |
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| A Red Tailed Hawk was flying on the thermals. |
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| Thimble Rock |
After getting down the to the desert floor we headed over south to the Saguaro National Park. There are two parts to this park. One in the East and one West of Tucson. We toured the East park today.
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| Lots of Saguaros! |
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| Cholla cactus. They had all types of cactus in the Park. |
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| Some huge Saguaros. These are quite old. Likely over 150 years to grow all those arms. |
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| A Fish Hook Barrel cactus. |
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| Many Saguaros started life growing in the shade of these trees. Over time the Saguaro takes over. |
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| The Gila Woodpecker makes their home on the Saguaro. |
Getting anywhere in Tucson takes time. The traffic isn't too bad but the distances are long and it seems you are always trying to cross the City to get anywhere. It took about an hour to get from the Saguaro Park to the Campground by Oro Valley.
Tuesday we explore west of Tucson.
....and that was Our View From Here!
Great tour of Mt. Lemmon. Good thing you got there before the snow came. Hope you are staying warm in Tucson. It's pretty cool here now at Tombstone. See you in a week or so. :)
ReplyDeleteCatatlina is a great park! We toured Mt Lemmon last year as well from there. So cool that you go from desert to ski hill in a relatively short distance. Great pic of the red tail hawk btw! Steve & Dianne showed us Gilbert Ray Park close to there too, another good spot with tons of saguaro cactus.....and rattle snakes. Watch where you hike.
ReplyDeleteWell if the sign says Banff is in BC then I guess it must belong to us now :-) In all our travels down here I have never seen a tarantula. Did seeing the snow put you in the Christmas spirit?
ReplyDeleteLove Saguaro National Park! we ddi that a few years ago. Mt. Lemmon looks beautiful! Thanks for taking us there! Your park looks lovely.
ReplyDeleteGlad you got to do this fabulous scenic drive before the snow hit. We’re amazed everytme we go. Safe travels!
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