So just to wrap up some thoughts about Tucson, because it is extremely awesome...if I were to give someone an idea of what to do for a week or a month there, here's the highlights.
1. Hiking: there are tons of options... If you want tall peaks (9000+ ft), you can do that with Mt. Lemmon or Mt. Wrightson fairly easily (north and south respectively). You can add in a little camping along with way if you want, too! For the easier half day stuff, 7 Falls in Sabino Canyon is great, there's a pool to wade in that is ICE cold and refreshing. A personal favorite is Tucson Mountain Park on the west side of town. You can explore to your heart's content in cactus covered hillsides only a couple miles west of town. The fitness buffs often use Tumamoc Hill and 'A' Mountain for hill workouts.
2. Food: Tucson has lots of great places to eat. Must tries: Tucson Tamale Company (Wisconsin Grilled Cheese tamale), Cafe Poca Cosa (a little pricier, but awesome!), Wisdom's Cafe down by Tumacacori - try a fruit burrito, El Guerro Canelo - you have to try a Sonoran hot dog somewhere and El Guerro is classic Tucson. Indian tacos/fry bread - you can get this at multiple places, the fry bread/popover itself is abotu $2, or you can get it topped with red/green chili, cheese, lettuce and tomato to make an Indian taco which is quite tasty and filling and fattening. These are easily bought at Mission San Xavier del Bac (just of I-19 south) which is a beautiful old mission.
3. Sunsets: Gate's Pass, Signal Hill in Saguara Nat'l Park (west), basically anywhere you can see an awesome sunset.
4. Airplanes: (in case you have a boyfriend like mine that is fairly enthralled by them...) Pima Air and Space Museum, Titan Missile Museum, Pinal (graveyard of airplanes). With Davis-Monthan Air Force base located in Tucson, you get to see plenty of "cool" airplanes in the sky as well. I heard multiple (sometimes scary) sonic booms when I was out on the reservation.
5. Biking: road biking, mountain biking, they have it both. Though mountain biking I would be very careful due to the cacti - I once saw a woman picking the cactus spines out of her husband's (?) butt in the middle of a trail. Tucson mountain park is a great place for mountain biking, and road biking is excellent on the west and east sides near either Saguaro as well as there is a 22 mile loop along the 'river' and downtown simply known as "The Loop". (I did get lost on a small part of it so I might have made it 23-24 miles.) They are working on even more biking paths for the future.
6. Artsy stuff: Tucson is home to a plethora of galleries as well as has craft shows often. The 4th Avenue street fair happens in December and March each year and is an excellent showing for crafts, photography and you name it odds and ends. There are many other small fairs throughout the year in various places.
That's just a little taste of some of my favorite things experienced in my 6 months in Tucson. Now the rest of AZ lies out there waiting to be explored, too, so I won't even start on that or I could write for a really, really long time... :)
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