January 2012: Picacho, Tubac, Tumacacori, Rio Rico, Patagonia, Sierra Vista, Ansel Adams, blue, white, red, orange, green, brown, crosses, flowers.
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First stop, Picacho Peak State Park where i was unable to get a photograph of the peaks that didn't annoy me.
Mottled skin of a toppled and rotting saguaro.
The little leaves of the little leaf palo verde.
Lichen
Cholla bones
On to San Xavier Mission.
I kept trying to get a good composition with the serendipitously white-suited gentleman, the white cross and the visible half moon, but didn't quite get what I wanted.
On to Tubac. I really hope that back when this sign was created, spelling "cemetary" as "cementary" was correct.
The graveyard appears to have been around for over a hundred years and not all the gravesites were as fancy.
Next stop: Tumacacori.
The garden at Tumacacori has been recreated to represent what it might have been like when the Spanish created the mission. It includes fruit trees they had brought with them, like apricot, monk's pepper, olive, pomegranate, and this, quince with a few last leaves clinging to it.
Honeysuckle in the garden
There was a tortilla-making demo onsite.
The tortilla, and the spicy homemade salsa that accompanied were delicious.
The sanctuary as it is now, and artist's rendering of the decorations as they were.
As I was looking at the front of the mission, trying to find the remnants of the bright red and yellow paint that was originally used on the facade, I saw this little red guy flying around the courtyard. He was cooperative and let me get right up underneath him. I looked him up later and am pretty sure it's a vermilion flycatcher.
More Catholic iconography at the hotel, the aspirationally named Esplendor Resort.
Despite the fancy name, it kind of just looks more like a serviceable Arizona college-area apartment building. But it was tidy, the service was good, and I appreciated their earnest efforts at interesting decor.
Nature trail around the hotel
Sycamore at the hotel
Night falling on Rio Rico
Next morning, some cedar waxwings on the trees outside the hotel. I hadn't seen a single one all last year in Seattle.
On the way to Patagonia, from Nogales, sped past this roadside shrine, u-turned for a look. Telles Family Shrine. From the plaque onsite: "BEGUN 1941 ERECTED BY JUANITA AND JUAN TELLES BASED ON A VOW TO GOD FOR THE SAFETY OF THEIR SONS IN WAR RE-DEDICATED NOVEMEBER 18, 1988
Down to Sierra Vista to the Nature Conservancy Ramsey Canyon Preserve
I did not take it, but this trail, Hamburg Trail that branches off from the Nature Conservancy is apparently often used by people crossing the border illegally.
But I only ran into these Coues white tail deer. Note the dad deer in the upper left.
A fluffy sycamore seed pod
Scouring rush
Back up to Tucson for an Ansel Adams exhibit. "There are worlds of experience beyond the world of the aggressive man, beyond history, and beyond science. The moods and qualities of nature and the revelations of great art are equally difficult to define; we can grasp them only in the depths of our perceptive spirit." Ansel Adams
I didn't see a single bird at the Nature Conservancy, so I thought I would stop at the ostrich farm that I'd passed a hundred times back when I used to live in AZ. For the hell of it. But it looked like they charged a fee to look at them and I wasn't that motivated. You can sort of see the shapes of two of them behind the screen to the right of the sign.
one last bit of wabi sabi before heading home