Today we packed our bags and said farewell to Tucson. Because of groceries, we actually left with more than we arrived with. So after my second run of the trip (shortened because we are on vacation), a second nice chat with Cindy our Airbnb host, we left our second stop on the Journey and headed out into the unknown again.

We went through Saguaro National Park East where the desolation factor was upped and the beauty factor was lowered. There seems to be maybe 10 basic plants in the park, the same ones we’ve seen every day so far, so after awhile I have to admit our attention wavered. And once again bicyclists infested the park – at one pull off MBH hadn’t bothered to get out of the car and I came running back because I saw heading towards us a cyclist slowly climbing a hill on the one way one lane road with a bunch of cars oozing behind and I didn’t want to get stuck. They were the most exciting moments of the visit but I’m sorry to say that between my unexpected arrival and the shortness of the hill we failed.

Oh to own a cycling shop in Tucson.

We had debated and discussed both with ourselves and with our host Cindy where to go in the afternoon so we headed towards the wine country around Sonoita but never made it. We found Charon vineyards a little ways south of I-10 down a gravel road where we enjoyed a delicious lunch, a very tasty Cab Sav, and had a nice view of the ever present mountains of Arizona. We cannot figure out how we traveled in the days before smart phones, GPS, and the internet. We did, and quite well, but we just can’t remember the technology besides paper maps.

But you can’t get from Point A to Point B without traveling, so we set off for our next Airbnb in the wilds of Sunizona and after a brief stop to purchase gas and milk we discovered you can drive a Nissan Sentra down spectacularly bad dirt roads. Did you know a dirt road over a hill becomes a rocky road? Now I do. Did you know a low dirt road becomes a soft sand road you shouldn’t stop on? Now I do. Even with all our modern technology you can sometimes take the road you really shouldn’t travel. Or need to. We were never lost since we could always see our blue dot on a map, but it can sometimes be hard to tell the difference between not knowing where you are versus where you want to be.

I sure hope the car runs tomorrow.

Another day another picture of us
The most complex Saguaro I’ve seen so far
To think, yesterday we were on top of those mountains and no clouds.

Notice the lack of saguaros in their eponymous park
Spiny Norman and the Piranha Brothers

In my imagination anyway
Our view at lunch
A panorama of Saguaro National park
Boulevard of broken dreams; I miss those early days of search engines not being evil