TUCSON ARIZONA

We spent a month at Diamond J's in Tucson, Arizona.  The campground is is located next a large stretch of BLM land and Tucson Mountain Park.  We hiked a large portion of their trails and two tracks.  A few members of the campground folks formed a hiking group, so Linda and I hiked with them a couple of times.  We did managed to see some petroglyphs, an owl, and a cactus with 60 some arms.  I would recomend Diamond J's just on location alone.  However, if you are looking for bathrooms, showers, swimiming pool. etc., you might want to look into the campground next door.



All of the trails we hiked were measured in miles.  The hike out to the Owls nest was about 4/5 miles, but well worth it.

There were several things we wanted to accomplish on this trip to Tucson.  The Biosphere 2 was on the top of my list.  Biosphere 2 was opened to the public in 1990.  The engineering marvel was created to better understand how natual enviroments create habitable conditions for human sustainability.  Biosphere 2 contains recreations of five of Earth's biomes, plus a human habitat and a large ecologial experiment facility.

Biosphere 2 facility is 3.14 acres, is 91 feet at its highest point, has 6,500 windows and 7.2 million cubic feet of glass and is sealed from the earth below by a 500-ton welded stainless steel liner.  This is a unique facility that can be used to understand the role of life on Earth and the effects of climate change.

The Mission San Xavier was next on our list of places that we wanted to visit while in Tucson.  The Mission is a National Historic Landmark, and was founded as a Catholic mission by Father Eusebio Kino in 1692.  The mission is the oldest intact European structure in Arizona.  The church's interior is filled with marvelous original statuary and mural paintings.

We ventured down to Mescal Arizona.  Located a few miles outside of town is an old western movie set owned by Old Tucson Studios.  There have been many great western movies made here including Monte Walsh, Tombstone, The Outlaw Josey Wales, The Quick and the Dead.  Some of the movie stars that have made movies here include John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, Kurt Russell, Val Kilmer, Sharon Stone, Gene Hackman, and the list goes on.  The tour takes about an hour and is well worth it.  Larry Brown is the man that gives the tour and he has as much fun giving it as we did taking it.  I would recommend this attraction to anyone who is a real western fan.

The next stop on the Holland's see Tucson is the Kitt Peak National Observatory.  Kitt Peak is at an elevation of 6,875 feet.  Kitt Peak was selected as the location of the first national astronomical observatory in 1957.  Today, Kitt Peak National Observatory is home to the largest collection of astronomical telescopes in the world.  Kitt Peak presently has 25 optical and 2 radio telescopes and offers astronomers some of the finest observing to be found in the world.  Linda and I enjoyed the self-guiided tour.  We especially liked the ride up to Kitt Peak, it offers some great views.

We decided that we should visit the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge.  The Refuge provides approximately 118,000 acres of habitat for endangered and threatened plants and animals.  Linda and I enjoyed the 10 mile auto tour.  We managed to see some javelina, pronghorn, a coyote and a roadrunner.  We checked in a the ranger station and then drove some of the dirt roads that meander through the park.  The ranger at the visitor station told us that they had not had any problems with illegals in the park.  We packed a pick-nix lunch and drove a lot of the back country of the park.

The next stop was the Arizona - Sonora Desert Museum.  The Desert Museum is a world-renowned zoo, natural history museum and botanical garden, all in one place.  We viewed the interpretive displays of living animals and plants native to the Sonoran Desert region.  Within the Museum grounds we saw more than 300 animals species and 1200 kinds of plants - alive in their natural desert settings.  We did hike the 2 miles of outdoor paths traversing 21 acres of beautiful desert.

The next and final stop on the Tucson Area Sightseeing Tour is Old Tucson Studios.  It was built in 1939 for the movie Arizona.  It has been the setting for more than 300 movies and TV productions, including John Wayne westerns Rio Bravo and McLintock!  The three Amigo's and Tombstone, starring Kurt Russell and Val Kilmer were also filmed here.  There is plenty to do at Old Tucson, you can ride in an old stagecoach, go for a a short horse ride around the property, see some of the shows at the Palace, watch a gun fight, or visit one of the many shops.  We visited here about 2years ago and it appears the have added a few more buildings and we were told that they are going to film 4 or 5 new westerns here, in the near future.