Chronicling the adventures of the NH Nomads
A seven-day (six night) adventure for just the two of us through Arizona. Lots of teaser visits, since we did not have much time to devote to any single point of interest. We know where we’ll want to spend more time next time we visit, though!
A couple of hours south of Tucson lies Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. The southern boundary of the park is the international border with Mexico. The visitor center is about six miles from the border crossing station on Arizona Route 85.
This park has a broad variety of cactus species, including Saguaro, Ocatillo, various types of Cholla, and obviously the Organ Pipe. This is the only place in the United States where the park’s namesake cactus can be found naturally.
When we rearranged our agenda to have a second day at Saguaro National Park, we pushed our visit to Casa Grande Ruins back a day. Rather than seeing it on our way out of Tucson, we went a little out of our way when heading from Phoenix to Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument.
The Union Pacific double-track main line splits in Vail, Arizona. East of the town, the lower track follows Cienega Creek, and the other track crosses over the lower line and the creek, making for a great spot to watch trains go over and under you (sometimes at the same time)!
This is the second installment of Saguaro National Park, and one that we did not even know about until we showed up at the Red Hill (West) District two days prior. We decided to hang out in the Tucson area for the day instead of heading back toward Phoenix and doing a couple of smaller points of interest there. We still drove to Phoenix in the evening and stayed at the hotel that we had booked for the night.
I wish we had several days to spend at Chiricahua! My decision to try to include a quick stop to Fort Bowie before we came to Chiricahua, combined with the short daylight hours this time of the year, wound up preventing us from going on most of the hikes here. We did a couple of quick hikes, but they were really just whetting our appetite to see more than we had time to see!
When planning our trip, I wanted to include Chiricahua National Monument as part of our agenda. I noticed Fort Bowie NHS on the map nearby, and thought that we could stop to visit here for maybe an hour, grab another stamp for our NPS Passport Book, then move on to Chiricahua.
Make note, Fort Bowie cannot be very well appreciated in a hurry!
We spent three hours, and that was rushing. With several trails and lots of interpretive signage, we could have easily spent an entire day at Fort Bowie.
After spending the morning at Tumacácori National Historical Park, we cut cross country through the Patagonia area toward Sierra Vista, and then south to the Coronado National Memorial.
Francisco Vasquez de Coronado was one of many names that I remember learning about in American history class growing up. A quarter century and 2500 miles separated from those classes, the name of this Spanish conquistador came back to me with a new appreciation for who he was, where he went, and what he was after.
This park came up as an option as we were looking for points of interest in the Tucson area. The park has a museum and gift shop and the grounds include a preserved Spanish mission building, cemetery, and the remnants of several other buildings from the era.
One of the things that we did not realize as we were planning our trip was that Saguaro National Park is comprised of two districts. In fact, we did not learn this until we arrived at the Red Hills Visitor Center and were talking to the ranger
Anywhere we go, we like to look for unique places to watch and photograph railroad activity. Last year, we accidentally found a spot in the Mojave Desert that was super busy with BNSF traffic. As I was putting plans together for this trip, I pulled up a map and followed that route east to see what parts of Arizona it crossed through. I saw that it paralleled our journey between Flagstaff and Petrified Forest National Park (it actually goes through the middle of that park). One spot that particularly caught my interest was where the line crossed Canyon Diablo, just east of Flagstaff.
