SW USA 2024: The Canadian Coddiwomplers*
*Coddiwomple: “to travel in a purposeful manner towards a vague destination."
Tucson Part Two
We’ve been busy enjoying our time here in Southern Arizona. Our friends Mel and Jay from Home A Roam stopped near Tucson on their way home to Hope, British Columbia. Jerry made BBQ Hamburgers for an early dinner and we heard about their adventures in Tucson visiting Barrio Bread; Amy’s Donuts and the Botanical Gardens. There is a display at the gardens called Washed Ashore. It is sculptures made from plastic gathered from the sea. We put it on our “To Do” list. Mel and Jay were boondocking south of Tucson near Sinaloa and they needed to leave in enough time to get home before dark.
We are close to the Davis-Monthan (DM) Air Force Base, a part of the United States Air Force's Air Combat Command. The base is home to the 355th Wing, responsible for training and deploying A-10C Thunderbolt II pilots. DM's aircraft inventory includes
A-10Cs, EC-130H Compass Calls, HC-130J Combat Kings, HH-60G Pavehawks, a contingent of F-16 Fighting Falcons and 4,000 assorted aircraft in the 309th Aerospace. Which means we are often treated to amazing airshows and flybys!
The base provides additional active duty support to the 162d Fighter Wing (162 FW) of the Arizona Air National Guard and the Air National Guard Air Force Reserve Command Test Center, both located at Tucson Air National Guard Base at nearby Tucson International Airport, and both of which fly the F-16C and F-16D Fighting Aircraft.
Fighter Jets
Secret Food Tour in Tucson
We signed up for a food tour of Tucson with a UK Company called Secret Food Tours.They do these all over the world. Since this was a walking tour, I carefully checked with the company about how much walking was involved and was assured that each walk between restaurants was short.
We started at the San Agustin Mercado where we met Corey, our guide, and tasted a Mexican pastry that looks like a pig and tastes like mild gingerbread called marranitos or puerquitos made with piloncillo spices (unprocessed cane sugar). The cookie came from the La Estrella Bakery. The market has a variety of stores around a central open-air courtyard where you can sit and enjoy the weather and your food. It was quite busy even though we had rain off and on all day.
Our next stop was just around the corner at Sonoran Delights for a famous Sonoran Hot Dog. I think I’ve mentioned before that Tucson has been designated as a World Heritage City of Gastronomy because their 4000-year culinary heritage is based in Sonoran Mexican and Native American traditions. There are tons of food festivals.
The Sonoran hot dog came from Hermosillo, the capital of the State of Sonora, Mexico. It has a special bun called the bolillo. The hot dog is wrapped with bacon, grille and placed on a bed of pinto beans in the bun then topped with onion, tomatoes, cheese, jalapeno salsa, mayo/mustard and other condiments if you like. It was really good although if I have another one I’ll ask for it without the beans.
Corey was lots of fun and she told us a lot about the places we were passing and visiting and pointed out interesting things along the way – like the transit hub named for Linda Ronstadt. Our tour was at the maximum number of people (12) because a family who had come together to celebrate a birthday all decided to take the tour together. They were all so nice. The woman celebrating her birthday was visiting her brother who lives with his wife in Tucson. Their daughter and son-in-law arranged for the family outing. One sister came from Seattle and another from North Dakota with her husband and an old family friend. Besides us and the family, a couple from Calgary were also part of the group.
We boarded the streetcar to go downtown. Since COVID all public transportation in Tucson is free for everyone. It’s great. Cory told us the next place we were stopping at used to be a speakeasy and still has many tunnels under the restaurant. The place is called Empire Pizza and we had a delicious slice that featured corn – the Elote Pizza. It’s a tomato-less pizza topped with mozzarella, goat cheese, grilled corn, chipotle mayo and Tajin (a chilli/lime seasoning).
We walked around the downtown core for a bit and Corey pointed out some of the murals and took us briefly into the Congress Hotel. The Great Lake Swimmers were performing at the hotel that night and we considered going to hear them but we were too tired! Nick Zubeck, an acquaintance and musician/guitarist from Guelph is currently touring with them.
By this time, I was lagging behind the group – it was more walking than I was led to believe but it was interesting. Especially seeing places to visit later that weren’t on the tour like Screaming Ice Cream, Gibson’s Grocery Store and La Macaron.
Our fifth stop on the tour was at Bombolé. The place offers a fusion of Indian and Latin foods. We sampled an empanada called the Fiesta Empanada. The crust was like a Samosa but the filling was shredded chicken with onions, celery, raisins, cranberries, quinoa and green olives. So Good! There were several kinds of empanadas offered and Tamales – we like Tamales!
We then made our way to the Visitor Centre and a little café under the archway where there was a choice of sweet potato or apple empanadas for dessert. They were OK but I wouldn’t go out of my way for another one.
One final stop before boarding the streetcar to take us back to the San Agustín Mercado was at the Tour de Tucson Mural to have a group photo by the javelina on a bike.
I was sore and very tired but it was a really fun way to see the city with a great group of people.
Later in the week, Jerry and I experimented with glass fusion at the Sonoran Glass School. I found this place while searching for an art/craft thing to do with Ash when they are here. We are going back with Amie, Ash and Mitch to blow a glass ornament.
Since our class was later in the afternoon, we decided to ride our bikes there along The Loop. We are getting much better at navigating our way along these amazing bike paths. We only got lost near the end but it was minor – we rode past the street for a ways and had to turn around. We left early enough to allow for getting lost so we actually arrived early and had the opportunity to watch some glass blowing.
Our projects were glass platters. Kaitlyn described a variety of materials we could use and showed us how to cut pieces of coloured glass and glue them in place. After our platters were composed and glued either with glue or hairspray (yes hairspray) they needed to be fired – the glass pieces will melt onto the base. We’re looking forward to picking them up when we return to make our ornaments. Here’s a picture of the pre-fired pieces. We'll see the final product on March 15th.
Our great navigating skills deserted us on the bike ride home! While riding through one of the washes we missed the trail taking us back up to the road level. Finally, we realized after a fair distance riding in the ditch, that this was not the right way and went back to where we thought we went the wrong way. It was too bad because we ended up taking the wrong trail (again) and having to use Google Maps to get us home. It was only about 7 miles out of our way! On another ride, we realized where we went wrong and didn’t make the same mistake!
After our rides we’ve been heading to the hot tub – it’s nice but of course we have to limit our time there.
So long for now.
Love from,
Jerry, Elizabeth, Misty, FJ (Flat Jesus), the Guys, Miss Adventure Too, and Clifford the Big Red Truck.
Comments
Post a Comment