Arivaca Road

A friend recommended we take a trip down Arivaca Road so that's what we did today. This is a curvy road so Nolan didn't get many photos.

Well he did get me going around this curve. We had to be so careful because it was open range and there was sand in the road on a lot of the curves.

We stopped at the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge to see if we could see any wildlife.

The BANWR covers a lot of territory.

I reached for a brochure and saw the only wildlife we found in the park.

The "pond" is barely there because of lack of rain.

No Gila Monsters here.

This sure is a big tree.

We continued our ride through Arivaca west to AZ 286. Don't know the name of this interesting peak.

In the middle you can see the observatory on top of Kitt Peak.

There were other interesting mountains but we didn't always stop for a photo.

Mission San Xavier Del Bac

Some work was being done on the front of the mission while we were there. The mission is in the Tohono O'odham Indian Reservation just south of Tucson.

Pictures of the interior.

The wash basin had drains. Looks like the water could be heated here too.

This is a scale model of the mission and grounds.

Chapel hill is just to the east of the mission but is not part of the mission property. We climbed the hill to see what we could see.

Well what do you know... Arizona isn't all brown. Looks like fields of alfalfa to us.

We could see "A" Mountain aka Sentinel Peak from here.

The mission from Chapel Hill.

Mt. Lemmon

Only 27 miles from Tucson there's a ski resort at the top of Mt. Lemmon. We decided to take a ride there along Sky Island Scenic Drive.

As the road starts to wind up the mountain, the vegetation is paloverde trees and saguaro cactus.

At the first vista point, we could see the road we came up.

As we climb higher the saguaros disappear. Biologically speaking, the drive up the mountain is like driving from Mexico to Canada. Watch how the vegetation changes as we go.

Just a few photos of the windy road.

We could see Tucson on the valley floor.

This is Barnum Rock, named for Willis Barnum, Tucson Boy Scout leader in 1916. See how we are in the trees now?
This is the San Pedro River Valley. On a clear day you can see New Mexico from here.

Looks like there has been a fire recently.

We rode to the summit of Mt. Lemmon and walked on two of the summit trails. This is where Meadow Trail and Lemmon Trail diverge.
Meadow Trail. Mt Lemmon is 9,157' tall so we got out of breath quickly due to the elevation.

View of rocks along Lemmon Trail.

Sentinel Peak

If you've looked at my previous posts, you've seen the photos of Sentinel Peak that we can see out our back window.
We decided to ride to the top. The road really isn't that windy but there are quite a few speed humps.

The big building just to the left of center is the county jail facility. Just right of center there is a road that runs straight south. Just to the south of where it ends we could see out our truck and trailer. Of course we had binoculars with us.
This is the I-10/I-19 interchange.

Look how knobby that saguaro is!

Sentinel Peak is also called "A" mountain due to the huge "A" on its side that is a symbol of the University of Arizona.

This is looking NNE. You can see Mt. Lemmon from here. It's over 8,000' tall and there's a ski area at the top.

View of downtown with the Santa Catalina Mountains in the background.

The big wash is the Santa Cruz River. As you can see, it is dry right now.

Another shot of the Santa Catalina mountains but look at the top of the photo. Just one of the many helicoptors that fly over the city daily.

Helicoptors aren't the only things overhead. The big jets circle over A mountain to line up for the airport. Often there are military jets in the air practicing manuevers.

The sun is just sinking below the mountains to the west.

I liked the big white home we passed on our way up the hill.

OK, in a previous post I told you to remember the shape of Picacho Peak. Well you can just see it in the left center portion of the photo. From Sentinel Peak you can see how Tucson is in a valley with mountain almost all the way around it.