Travels 2019

Bus trip through downtown Tucson.  Cathedral is under renovation, but I was still able to get a good picture.   Below:  Could not guess what this was until the tour guide told us.  Someone guessed a bird cage.  This is hanging above a restaurant.  They're drying jerky for sale in their restaurant.  We drove by several murals.  This one was the best I thought. San Xavier cathedral.  Also being restored to original.  The right dome was never completed back in the 1800's due to lack of funds.  So they are restoring it without the right dome. Biosphere 2 is about 25 miles North of Tucson.  I loved touring this amazing place.  It was named Biosphere 2 because planet earth is Biosphere 1. It encompasses several structures.  The lower dome in the back is called a lung.  It adjusted the air pressure throughout the Biosphere. The dining hall where the Biosphere prepared and a...

Above:  Close to our campground near Phoenix.   Canyon Lake just East of Phoenix.  Had a nice boat ride and absolutely perfect weather. Below this Heron looked like a statue, until he finally flew away. Can you see the long horn sheep in the picture below?  I couldn't until I zoomed in with my camera. Had fun watching this boy with his dog.  Not sure the dog was liking the ride, but he stayed in the wagon and did exactly what the boy was telling him to do.

Stopped by Scottsdale, Arizona just East of Phoenix.  Beautiful shops.  Could have spent several hours here, but only had a short time. Next stop was the Queen Creek Olive Mill. Did not know there were so many different kinds of olive oil. They grow two different kinds of olives here ones from trees that are spread out.  And others are very densely grown together. Queen Creek brought this old style stone press back from Italy.  This is the way the olives were pressed for centuries before the new modern technology took over. These are densely grown olive trees.  This tractor just straddles the trees and shakes the ripened olives off.   Next stop was Goldfield, where a gold mine was discovered in the early 1900's.  Many millions of dollars of gold was mined before the mine got flooded and closed the town down.  They've reconstructed the old Western town and it's now quite a tourist trap. Cliff having a talk wi...