SW USA 2024: The Canadian Coddiwomplers*
*Coddiwomple: “to travel in a purposeful manner towards a vague destination."
Tucson, Arizona
We have been at the Tucson Lazy Days KOA Resort for a few weeks now and really enjoying the spring weather, sunshine and the city. The days are warm and sunny and the nights are cool – perfect! We’ve hot tubbed and been swimming and picked lemons off the lemon tree on our site. Almost every site here has a citrus tree and oranges, lemons, limes and grapefruit are free at the front office. On our first day here, Jerry met a woman who gathered fruit while she was taking her daily walk around the park. She had what looked like a homemade device for picking the fruit. It seemed to be a plastic basket from the old game where you shot a ping pong ball up and tried to catch it the basket. Anyway, this basket was mounted on a broom handle – how the picking part worked, I don’t know. Our lemons are different. They look like oranges and taste like sweet grapefruit – yummy. (They are "Meyer" lemons.)
There is a lot to do here. One of the first things we discovered is the city is a real cycling place. They have the paved, multipurposed Huckelberry Loop which is 137 miles around and through the city (The Loop). Named after Chuck Huckelberry (honestly) a prominent Tucson citizen who loved to bike. There are also numerous bike friendly streets and other pathways, to us that’s amazing. The city also has numerous wall murals, sculptures and themed bridges over the washes and highways. So far we’ve seen and ridden over the Rattlesnake Bridge, driven under a Frog or maybe it’s a Toad bridge, a Stars & Stripes bridge, a possible Butterfly bridge and others that are abstract art.
Tucson Historical Bike Tour
Our first tour was an historical tour of the city on our bikes. I called to see if we could ride our own trikes and asked if there was a discount when we didn’t need their equipment. The answer was “no” – worth a try! We decided we’d get up early (groan) and ride our bikes to the meeting place since it was only 7 miles there, 8 miles on the tour and 7 miles back. However, we also decided to investigate the route first to avoid being late for the tour the next day.
The loop trail is great. The portion that takes you downtown follows a huge wash called the Julian Greenway Wash. There were lots of interesting things to see along the way like murals, gardens and a huge toad called “Puddles the Great Plains Toad” created in 2011 by city high school students. The art along The Loop is supported by the Pima County Public Art Program. Unfortunately, there are also many homeless encampments and garbage.
As we were riding beside the wash, we heard and then saw a pack of coyotes howling. They were down in the wash in a more rural area. That was fun.
We soon discovered that the delightful map of The Loop we were given at the visitor center is not very detailed. It doesn’t show when there are connecting streets , street crossing etc. so we made a lot of wrong turns and did some back tracking too. It’s also not very clear about how to get off The Loop and find places downtown. By using Google Map directions we did eventually find the Tucson Bike Company which is in a little courtyard off an alley.
On the way back, we found a more direct and shorter route on the Aviation Bikeway which we decided we would take to the tour the next day. We were very glad we checked it all out beforehand.
The next morning, we got up extra early and left in what we though was sufficient time to meet our guide and group and we set out on the Aviation Bikeway. We did very well for a while. You know Jerry says we can get lost in our own backyard, well we did. You see there is a place where you leave the trail and use a connecting road to get back to the trail. It was very clear on our way home the day before but not so clear going in the other direction. We must have gone about 5 kilometers out of our way - all the time I was thinking, this doesn’t look familiar but I wasn’t very familiar with the trail anyway. Finally we used the phone to see where we were on Google Maps and discovered our error. I called Lorraine, our guide and told her we would be late. It worked out OK because the one other person on our tour hadn’t arrived yet so Lorraine said she would wait for us. Putting our trikes on the highest level of assist, we raced back to where we went wrong and onwards to the alley behind 4th Avenue! Phew! We also left the Google Maps directions on – draining my battery so Jerry had to take all the pictures.
Our tour was great. Lorraine showed us many historical buildings and described the history of Tucson at the many stops on our route.
Lorraine, our Guide
On our way to Tucson, we have seen lots of "mountains" with large letters on them. Many in Texas and of course we already talked about the "B" in Bisbee. I wondered what they were all about, finally, Lorraine enlightened us. The universities have created them and I think she said that the "A" here in Tucson was the first. Built to celebrate a football victory. Each year the freshmen at the University of Arizona are tasked with painting the letter and cleaning up the site. You can actually drive up there - so far we haven't.
Here are just a few of the tour highlights.
The Hotel Congress built in 1919 and where John Dillinger was arrested during a fire in 1934.
The Southern Pacific Station where Wyatt Earp shot Frank Stillwell and Engine 1673 is on display. It hauled freight over a million miles and appeared in the 1954 movie Oklahoma starring Shirley Jones and Gordon McCrea.
There are wonderful murals all over the city and we stopped at a well-known piece like the el Tour de Tucson.
In the Presidio area, Lorraine pointed out a restaurant called El Charro which is the oldest continuously family-owned Mexican restaurant in the US. It is also where the Chimichanga was invented by Monica Flin, the founder of El Charro. The story we were told is that Monica was cooking in the El Charro kitchen and the children were underfoot. She dropped a burrito into the deep fryer by accident. Wanting to swear but not in front of the kids she said, “Oh! Chimichanga.” One of the staff offered to try the deep fried burrito and a new food was created. There is also a restaurant downtown called The Monica to honour the Grande Dame of Tucson.
We cycled past Sonoran Row Houses from the 1860s & 70s. The houses have the front door practically on the street and the living area and courtyards are behind.
Pretty Doors
There were a couple of “gentlemen’s clubs” on the tour. One called the Owl’s Club was built in the early 1900s and presently is home to a conservation organization that was created to protect owls – how appropriate.
Can you find the Owl?
We saw lots of historical places and some new items like the Griffin Sculpture honouring Harry Potter.
In the mission area we rode past Phina’s Tree. The tallest tree in Tucson was planted by a little girl in 1910 at her bus stop. We also saw the Mercado San Agustin, a small market offering traditional Sonoran cuisine. More about this in a later blog. There is also a market created out of old shipping containers. It looks intriguing and I’d like to visit there.
Our penultimate stop was at The Bike Church. A small shrine made from old bicycle parts and finally, the Ronstadt Residence, where Linda Ronstadt grew up. Tucson has honoured one of their favourite residents by naming one of the transit hubs after her.
Our tour lasted about 3 1/2 hours and we saw lots more that I haven’t mentioned. By the end we were hungry and tired and went in search of a restaurant famous for tacos and recommended by Lorraine. After a few jaunts along 4th Avenue we finally found the place called Boca’s. There was a line-up outside, but we soon discovered it was because they don’t open until noon. Jerry enjoyed some shrimp and fish tacos but I opted for a cabbage salad with a special kind of Mexican beef. The coleslaw was good but the beef was like jerky – not my favourite. I have difficulty ordering Mexican food because I have no idea what stuff is, although I am learning.
After lunch we discovered that I had lost our map somewhere along the way so we made a brief visit to Campfire Cycling where we got a new map of The Loop and clear directions on how to get back on The Loop to go home. A good day riding about 50 KM; but also tiring. Back at the camp we hit the hot tub, showered and napped.
This is long – enough for now.
Love from,
Jerry, Elizabeth, Misty, FJ (Flat Jesus), the Guys, Miss Adventure Too, and Clifford the Big Red Truck.
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