Phoenix and Tucson

February 7, 2023

We had a very nice stay for 9 nights at Lost Dutchman State Park in Apache Junction, AZ east of Phoenix. The weather has been very nice during the day, getting up in the mid 60’s mostly, but once the sun goes down at night it gets cold quickly. The lowest we had at night was 29 degrees. The water in our hose froze, but our little furnace keeps us nice and toasty,

We did lots of fun things during our stay here. We went to the Superstition Mts Museum and learned all about the history and lore of the area. The lost Dutchman, in the name of our state park, is Jacob Waltz who in the 1870s supposedly found a very rich gold mine in the mountains. Unfortunately he died before he could mine it and as the story goes that on his death bed he mentions the mine is in the Superstitions and people have been searching for it ever since. This part of Arizona was also famous for movie sets for western films from the late 1940’s to late 1960’s  and Apacheland was one of these movie sets. Elvis Presley was in a movie called Charro that was filmed here.

Apacheland Studio

Church of Elvis

Another day we went to Boyce Thompson Arboretum, a little ways east of Apache Junction in Superior. We have been here several times in the past and really like it. They have cactus from all over North and South America and desert plants from Asia, Africa and Australia. They have really nice trails and we walked all over. Mark was pleased to see 13 species of birds including a Vermillion Flycatcher and our first Northern Cardinals of the trip!

Barrel Cacti

Northern Cardinal

Hiking at Boyce Thompson Arboretum

One windy day, we went to the Musical Instrument Museum. This was our first time here and it was a wonderful find.The museum has over 10,000 musical instruments from all over the world. When you enter, they give you head phones and almost every display has audio visual information about the instrument or in some case the artist that you can see and hear. I never knew there were so many different types of instruments! We spent over 4 hours here and did not see it all. We visited  the Asian, North American and Europe areas as well as the Mechanical Music Gallery and the Artist Gallery. I guess we will just have to come back another time! 

Instruments from NW China

Instruments from S Korea

Orchestrion

Guitar Collection

We also enjoyed a 1 and 1/2 hour cruise on the Steamship Dolly on Canyon Lake, a short 15 minutes east of our campground.  Besides seeing beautiful scenery, we saw bald eagles and mountain bighorn sheep. Afterwards, we drove the additional 2 miles to Tortilla Flats, a little touristy Western town for lunch. Most times that we have been there the place in packed. That evening, we went to a music program at the state park with cowboy singer, Steve Jones. He sang lots of fun songs.

Big Horn Sheep

Steamship Dolly

Canyon Lake

We also enjoyed hiking in our state park. They have lots of very nice trails. Many of the trails continue into Tonto National Forest Wilderness, giving you lots of options for nice hikes.

We left Lost Dutchman State Park on Monday, January 30 and headed south to Tucson. We made a stop at Casa Grande Ruins National Monument near Coolidge, AZ. This is quite an impressive ruin. Archeologists think that in its highpoint in the 14th century about 2,000 people lived in the area. The ancient people were farmers and built many miles of canals to irrigate their crops. No one knows for sure why the people left the area, but it is thought that a series of droughts and floods and possibly overpopulation caused the people to disperse into smaller groups.

Our next stop for a week was at Gilbert Ray Campground in Tucson Mountain Park, on the west side of Tucson. The view from our campsite is lovely with mountains and lots of cactus. On our first full day in Tucson, we visited Mission San Xavier Del Bac, in southern Tucson. The church was completed in 1797 and is still being  used. It is very beautiful. We visited Saguaro National Park- West Tucson Mountain District. We went to the Visitor Center and took the Bajada Scenic Loop Road. We took some short nature walks. One of the walks was at Signal Hill to see some petroglyphs and another was called the Desert Discovery Nature Trail. The area is really stunning.

Mission  San Xavier del Bac

Saguaro National Park

Petroglyphs at Saguaro National Park

On Wednesday we went to Sabino Canyon Recreation Area in NE Tucson in the Coronado National Forest. The road to the top of the canyon follows the stream and crosses it several times. We usually take the tram to the last stop and then walk back down to the parking lot.It is beautiful walk with one lovely view after another. The stream was kind of high this trip and it went over two of the bridges. We had to cross these bridges and our feet got pretty wet. The water actually went over our boots crossing one of the bridges! It was a lot of fun and luckily, we brought other shoes along. After our nice walk we treated ourselves to lunch out a a nearby Mexican restaurant.

Sabino Canyon

"Wet Feet" Bridge

The Arizona Sonoran Desert Museum is another of our favorite places in Tucson. It is kind of a combination of zoo, aviary, botanical garden and museum. We always make sure we get there in time for the raptor free flight program. The birds we saw this time were a Chihuahuan Raven, a Great Horned Owl, a Crested Caracara and 5 Harris Hawks. It is quite surprising the first time they fly less than a foot over your head. We also went to an animal show and saw a Military Macaw, a Porcupine and a Barn Owl. We walked all the trails and saw lots of native animals including a wolf, coyotes, javelinas, an otter, a mountain lion and lots more. We also enjoy the hummingbird aviary and the native birds aviary. They have very nice cactus garden too.

Porcupine

3 Harris Hawks

Crested Caracara

Great Horned Owl

The weather was getting warmer, so on Friday, we went to Madera Canyon Recreation Area in the Santa Rita Mountains of Coronado Nations Forest.  It is south of Tucson near Green Valley and is known to be a great birding spot. Because of its elevation and the creek running through it, the landscape is totally different than in Tucson. We parked at a picnic area at 5400 feet and walked down on the nature trail to a picnic area at 5000 feet. We returned to our truck by walking on the road. Afterwards we went to a bird feeding station and saw even more birds: WildTurkeys, Acorn Woodpeckers, Yellow Eyed Juncos, Redstarts and Inca Doves. We saw 14 species in all!

Redstart

wild turkey

Acorn Woodpecker

Nature trail at Madera Canyon

Santa Rita Mts from Nature Trail

Yesterday and today have gotten into the mid 70’s and we even had shorts on for awhile in the afternoon. We have stayed a bit closer to our campground. Yesterday, we took a hike in Saguaro National Park. It was a nice 3.7 mile loop with cactus everywhere. Today we took a nice trail from our campground also, with many cactus. We finished the day off by going to the National Park Visitor Center for a program on the Full Moon. A ranger talked al little about the full moon and then a volunteer played his handmade wooden flutes, which are copies of Native American flutes. We were out on the visitor center porch facing east and it was so cool listening to the flute music as we watched the moon rise.

Hiking in Saguaro Nt Park

Sunset

Full Moon Rising with flutist

Yesterday, we moved on to Patagonia Lake State Park. More about that next time!