Living near the Saguaro National Forest is really kind of surreal. For all you out-of-towners, here's a little view of our hometown. We took a scenic drive through Gates Pass in southwestern Tucson. It's in the Saguaro National Forest and for many people, the sight of thousands of Saguaros makes you feel like you're on another planet.
Arizona has a lot of what I call "Tall-Tale names". Places like "Bloody Basin Road", "Sore Finger Road", "Dead Man's Wash", towns named "Mammoth", "Bumblebee", "Show Low" (named after a guy won the land in a card game), "Why" (yes that's a real town!) Names of things that non-locals can't pronounce like "Mongollon Rim" (MUG-ee-on) or "Tempe" (tim-PEE). I picture a bunch of cowboys in the 1800's sitting around a campfire, telling embelished stories about the area and coming up with these names. I mean, what must have happened to someone to name a place "Sore Finger Road"??!! It's definitely a fun and interesting place to grow up.
When I started college, I couldn't wait to get out of Arizona. I was born & raised here and wanted to see something else for a change. At that time, I met my future husband and because I was starry-eyed in love, I followed him to college. Now you would've thought I'd "get out of Dodge" to some place kind of exotic & totally different like Hawaii or California or New England. But noooooo....I followed him to Oklahoma & west Texas! Not that there's anything wrong with that....but when you have no car & no money, I felt like I was confined in a cage. It literally drove me nuts not being able to get out & go exploring! Plus there wasn't anything interesting close to the colleges...scenic or touristy...to see. I remember sneaking out of the dorm room with a couple of friends one night to stay out past curfew and then climbing the wall to get back in the dorm. Can't remember what we did that night but I remember thinking it was ridiculous to have a curfew in college. Just another way to break the humdrum confinement I felt I was locked into (of course that was back in '87-'90 and the colleges are much different now).
Suddenly I started missing the mountains, the cactus, the sunsets, being close enough to drive to the ocean in a weekend. We did manage to visit Dallas & San Antonio which were some of the highlights of my college years. I loved San Antonio's river walk and I regret not being able to see Austin. Now that we've been back to Arizona for over 13 years, I told Don that we have to live at least close enough to drive to the ocean for a weekend. ha! We finally went to Rocky Point, Mexico for the first time about a year ago (Puerto Penasco). I've heard it's lost some of it's charm as a fishing village because condos and resorts are taking over the beaches, but it was still a fun place to see. And it's only 4 hours from us!
These are some recent photos we've taken of the Saguaro National Forest, Gates Pass, a hot-air balloon over the mountains near our house, sunset in our backyard and a video through Gates Pass.
Aaaahhhh...can anyone say ROAD TRIP?
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