ARIZONA!!!

The home school group where I teach beginning strings had spring break the first week of March and the English classes for the Afghanistan community is on Ramadan break so I decided I would fly to Arizona to visit my sister from March 4 until tomorrow, the 10th. I flew out Tuesday afternoon in a pouring rainstorm. Happily, not severe weather - which was a possibility. I was in B seating but I still managed to snag a window seat on the second row! And I saw some beautiful sights on my flight - when I wasn't watching Moana 2. 

Amy picked me up from Sky Harbor and I spent the night at her place in Mesa. She and I took a lovely little walk around her neighborhood Wednesday morning where I saw these gorgeous bougainvillea. 

I also picked lemons, oranges and tangerines to bring back to Missouri. Juli drove down from Payson that morning and we loaded up Amy's Toyota Highlander and headed off to adventures for the next couple of days. 

Our first stop was to the Binghampton cemetery in Tucson to show Amy where mom and dad were buried. She and Cory had gone there earlier and couldn't find the tombstones. We also visited my grandparents stones.

We ate lunch at a Culvers, drove by the airplane graveyard in south Tucson,

 and then drove to Kartchner Caverns. We took a fascinating tour given by a very knowledgeable guide. Sadly, in order to preserve the cave, we couldn't bring cameras or phones so I just bought a postcard and took a photo at the entrance.

Juli had reserved an AirBnB in Sierra Vista for two days and it was a very nice one - beautifully decorated and well equipped. Juli and Amy had their own rooms and I slept on a roomy couch. After settling in, we shopped for some breakfast items, ate a light meal and watched Leap Year that evening for Amy's sake who had never seen it and neither Juli nor I minded watching it again.  We had a beautiful sky that evening. Sierra Vista is the same altitude as Payson and Prescott and it is nestled up against a beautiful mountain that is high enough for pine trees (although, there were no pines in the town - just lots of cypress trees as you can see in the photo)

Thursday morning, we drove down to Bisbee, a cute little touristy town that originated in the 1800's from copper mining. We visited a well curated museum and wandered around the shops. We were impressed at how the residents maintained their cute little hundred-year old homes. We found a narrow set of stairs lined with art work. Fun!

We returned to Sierra Vista (only 20 minutes from Bisbee) for a Mexican food lunch before driving to nearby Ramsey Canyon (in that mountain I was telling you about). It is owned and maintained by the Nature Conservancy and we enjoyed a lovely half-mile hike along a well maintained self-guided trail with interesting points of interest along the way. We also saw deer. Note the coats - it was chilly-ish.

 

That evening, we had a very nice visit with cousin Mona Varga who lives in Sierra Vista.

Friday morning, we checked out of the AirBnB and drove to Tombstone. We didn't plan to stay long and catch the gunfight and other attractions and, it was so windy and cold due to a storm front coming in so we left even earlier than anticipated. Tombstone was also a mining town.

Our next stop was to continue east to the Chiracahua National Monument. It is basically a mountain range with cool rock formations - a lot like Bryce Canyon National Park. By then, the front was on top of us and we encountered so much wind, rain and even light snow. We didn't stay long. But I managed to get some fun pictures (can you see the profile of Cochise in the mountain photo?) before we scurried to our car to get warm.

We arrived back in Mesa around 5:00 that evening. We took a photo of us showing off our matching t-shirts that we bought at Ramsey Canyon. Note the green Arizona shirt that Juli is wearing in the Kartchner Caverns photo. All three of us own the same shirt and I didn't think to bring mine or we could have all been matching! So we decided to buy new t-shirts that matched.

 Juli and I then loaded up her car and left for Payson after we ate dinner at a place in downtown Mesa called Against The Grain - a completely gluten-free restaurant. The menu was daunting but I finally decided upon mozzarella sticks and chicken strips and a donut. Juli shared a bit of her orange chicken. Everything was delicious!

The weather we dealt with all day caused us a bit of concern on our drive up to Payson as they had snow off and on all day. Happily, we just encountered rain, thick fog and some snow but nothing was sticking to the roads (and it wasn't icy).  We breathed a sigh of relief when we pulled into Juli's driveway! And, evidently, ADOT closed the southbound part of the Beeline highway that night due to snow so I guess we made it to Payson in the nick of time!

This is what we woke up to Saturday morning...

That morning, we got to see the newly released movie Rule Breakers which is a true story about an Afghanistan girl robotic team and the obstacles they faced, being girls in a Taliban ruled country. I really enjoyed it. And, the viewing was sponsored by the Payson Classic Car Club. The club has a monthly movie activity of going to a movie at the local theater. A member of Juli's ward belongs to this club and she invites members of the ward to join. For $8, we got a drink, popcorn AND saw the movie. What a deal!!!

After the show, we did some shopping. I found some pretty rock souvenirs for my students. Temperatures warmed up and snow was melting fast.  We worked on a 500 piece puzzle in the afternoon. And we watched Instrument of War that evening. It was a true story about a WWII POW camp in Germany and a prisoner who built a violin while he was there. Really good.

Today was church in the morning, we took a nice walk this afternoon (again, temperatures are in the 60's) and I will get to see Jesse and Kat for dinner. I fly back to St. Louis tomorrow evening. 

I will close with a photo of our puzzle and of a beautiful vista from Massai Point in Chiracahua.