We are in a nice campground in Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument which is located along the Mexican boarder. Our friends, Bernie and Rea from Alaska are here with us. Friday we decide to go across the boarder to Puerto Penasco known in the US as Rocky Point. It is about 60 miles from the boarder and located along the Gulf of California. Lots of large hotel dot the shore and this is a very popular place for college kids to come for spring break. The town was ready for the spring breakers. We had a fun day shopping along the main part of town and had a great seafood lunch in a open air second story restaurant. We brought home fresh shrimp and cooked them and had shrimp cocktail for dinner that night.
 |
| Twin Peaks Campground Organ Pipe Cactus |
 |
| Puerto Penasco Mexico |
 |
| Dick, Barb, Rea & Bernie |
 |
| Along the waterfront |
 |
| Seafood lunch |
Saturday we drove one of the scenic roads in the park which is in the heart of the Sonoran Desert. We saw many kinds of cactus, plants and trees. There were markers along the way pointing out things to look at. We even saw a crest growing on some of the arms of an organ pipe cactus.
 |
| Crested organ pipe cactus |
 |
| Beautiful flowers along the road |
 |
| Double arch |
Mar. 11 & 12
Today we drive 35 miles north and spend the night in Ajo AZ. It's a small town with a now closed copper mine. There are large mountains of tailing's on the edge of town. We took a drive out on the desert and saw an Indian cemetery. We stopped to see the old open pit mine. On Sunday we say good-by to our friends, Bernie and Rea. We are going to Tucson and they are going to Yuma.
 |
| Indian cemetery out in the desert |
 |
| cactus in bloom |
 |
| The sign says it all!! We saw these warnings anywhere close to the boarder |
 |
| Old copper mine by Ajo |
Mar. 13
Tuesday we go to Saguaro National Park Eastern side and drove the scenic road around the park. The desert isn't as pretty as it was out of Apache Junction.
 |
| picture made out of saguaro cactus wood |
 |
| cactus in the park |
 |
| crested saguaro cactus |
Mar. 15
Thursday we spend the day at Kitt Peak National Observatory. It is the site of the largest collection of astronomical telescopes in the world with 25 optical and 2 radio telescopes. It is a working observatory and the astronomers were sleeping in the the dormitories. We were able to visit 4 telescopes One was a solar telescope and could see sun spots on the sun. We saw another large solar telescope, a 2.1m and 4m telescopes. They offer a night program but were sold out until the first of April. Next time we will get tickets over the Internet.
 |
| Solar Telescope |
 |
| Inside 4m Telescope |
 |
| 4m Telescope |
 |
| A view of some of the telescopes |
Mar. 16
Friday we drove to Tombstone and Bisbee. In Tombstone we walked around the town and looked in the many shops and had lunch in the saloon. We stopped at Boothill Grave Yard were many pioneers are buried from 1878 to around 1884.
 |
| Tombstone AZ |
 |
| O.K.Corral |
 |
| Boothill |
In Bisbee we saw another open pit copper mine that is no longer being worked. Walked around the downtown and then headed back to Tucson.
Mar. 17
Today we go to the Asarco Mission Mine. This is a working open pit copper mine and we went to the edge of the pit and saw the enormous trucks moving the ore out of the pit to the mill. In the mill we saw how the ore is crushed into a fine powder and the extraction process is begun. The pit is 2 miles by 1 3/4 miles and 1500 feet deep. One ton of ore produces 10 pounds of copper. They also extract some gold in the process. It was a good tour and enjoyed seeing how copper is mined.
 |
| Dump truck capacity 170 tons |
 |
| Trucks moving ore |
 |
| Crushing cylinder inside mill |
We also visited Mission San Xavier del Bac which is referred to as the "white dove of the desert" This is an active Franciscan mission is located on the Tohono O'Odham Indian Reservation.
 |
| Mission San Xavier del Bac |
 |
| The ceiling |
 |
| Inside the ornate church |
We finished the day with a visit to DeGrazia Gallery in the Sun. He is a well known Arizona artist and the gallery displayed more than 15,000 DeGazia original
 |
| DeGrazia Gallery in the Sun |
Mar. 18
The weather turned cold and rainy. There are winter storm warnings all over the state of Arizona. Heavy snow is falling the the north and the mountains around Tucson have snow on them. We did grocery shopping today to get ready to move tomorrow. We decided to go the Casa Grande, just south of Phoenix for three days and hopefully the weather will warm up and the snow melt by Thursday so we can go to Sedona.
No comments:
Post a Comment