Thursday, January 7, 2016

There and back again: A winter trip to Tucson

On vacation this year we took a trip to Tucson AZ for our dear friend's wedding. On our way, we stopped by several national parks, national monuments, national forests, museums, gardens, and state parks.

On our first day on the road we traveled to Canyon lands. The red rock and drama of the extremes with deep canyons and high rock formations was breath taking. Here are a few photos that try to explain the beauty.









The next day we went to Arches and Hovenweep.



While Hovenweep was out of the way, it was beautiful and it gave us a beautiful sunset over the desert.


The next day we went to the Painted Desert and Petrified Forest. The wood and rocks were red, pink, yellow, white, blue, chocolate brown, black, and soft greens.

We followed historic route 66 and this car is a memorial to that "All American" road.





Finally we arrived in Tucson where we went to some interesting caves (no pictures allowed) and to the Sequaro National Park. I had twisted my ankle earlier that day, so we did only very short hikes.


The next day we went to the Desert Museum that is more like a preserve than a museum because there weren't any dead animals! We spent 6 hours watching birds, admiring flowers, and enjoying the 'exibits.'







The next day was the day of the wedding, which took place at the Tucson botanical gardens. It was a lovely gardens. My battery ran out early in the day so only a few photos were taken.


Yes this is made out of legos!

The next day we left and stopped by Montezuma's Castle. It is an ancient dwelling that has been very well preserved. A lady there encouraged me to try a leaf off a bush. It tasted retched! After spitting and chugging water and eating some prickly pear candy, I was ok though :)

On the last day of our road trip we stopped by Hoover Dam and got this lovely photo before finishing our trip home.
I know this post was long with many photos, but so much of our trip was the beauty around us. This trip took 9 days with traveling through Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, and Nevada. I have barely mentioned all the stuff we did, but to recount it would take another 9 days so here are just a few of the photos and just a tid-bit of the stories.

4 comments:

  1. I've been clicking on the 'next blog' button for close to twenty minutes and finally a blog worth looking at. No need to apologize for the amount of photos, this post was fantastic! What a trip!

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    1. Daniel, Thank you! I'm glad you stumbled upon my blog and commented. As you probably noticed, most people don't comment, which makes communication a tad difficult without feedback. And positive feedback, like yours, makes the posting worth while.

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  2. Amanda. Wow! great pictures, thanks for the great slide show.

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