Madera Canyon & Manuels

The desert flowers are about ready to bloom in the Tucson area.  We happened to see this pretty flower along side of the road on the way to Madera Canyon.  It looked a little lonely sitting there by itself.

 The weather was fantastic today and we decided to drive out to
 Madera Canyon just east of Green Valley, AZ.  It's in the Coronado National Forest and is a box canyon with a number of picnic grounds, a campground and some B&Bs along the way.  The farthest you can drive is to a picnic area that is at 5400ft.  It is at the beginning of an 11 mile hiking trail that must be murder.  What do you think, could you handle hiking in an area like the one below?  

See the snow pockets on the mountain side?

Heading down the mountain - Green Valley in the distance.

Wild mountain stream

How would you like this rock in your garden?

We stopped by the Madera Campground to see if there was space for our motor home.  Not only wasn't there space for it in any campsite, but the road leading into the campground had a big dip that would hang up the motor home.  Oh well, there are a lot of other campgrounds out there.  If you have a smaller unit and a lot of blocks to level it, it would be a nice place to spend a few days.


When we are in the Green Valley area we try and stop by Manuel's Mexican restaurant for lunch or dinner.  Gerry ordered the enchilada platter and this is what came out for her dining pleasure.  She couldn't finish it, but did enjoy what she could.

 I ordered the burrito supreme and was very surprised to see how large it was.  It was even more than I could eat and I had to leave a lot on the plate.  However, the Dos XX Amber was great and I managed to drain the glass.

We took our time coming back to the campground and stopped and chatted with Ron K as he was preparing his trailer for when he heads back east in a couple weeks.  Then we were stopped by Dan's father, Ed and he pointed out a bird's nest with two baby humming birds in it.  They were so tiny and the light was fading so Gerry couldn't get a good shot of the nest.  Maybe I will go up there Sunday when the light is better and get a nice shot of the birds.  

That was our exciting day, how was yours?

Tubac & Manuel's

All of us have some quirks and things about us that we can't explain.  Gerry and I like to keep track of when our odometer changes every 1,000 miles and especially for milestones.  I haven't bored you lately with this quirk, but feel obligated to report that our Saturn Vue has turned over 116,000 miles and is still running great.  Other than hail damage two years in a row it still looks good.

Gerry wanted a new pot to plant her Christmas cactus in since the old one was too small and tipped over very easily.  We took advantage of that need and drove down to Tubac to pick out a nice one.  There are a number of shops down there that have nice ceramic things and we like one that is off the main road.  They have a very nice selection and reasonable prices for a tourist area.  She found just what she was looking for and was on her way into the shop to pay for it when I captured the picture below.

Gerry checking out the wares.

Not sure what you would do with this one.

Fear the terps.  (U of MD mascot)

$30 for a  huge ristras

It is a beautiful drive down there through the desert and then onto Old Nogales highway.  Along the way you pass through very large pecan orchards and they are starting to loose their leaves for the winter.  The Walden family purchased 7,000 acres of land along the Santa Cruz river in 1948 and farmed cotton on the land.  In 1965 they planted pecan trees and are now one of the largest pecan producers in the U.S.  They are the principal suppliers of pecan to Europe along with sales throughout the world.

Green Valley pecan orchards on Old Nogales Highway

 The Santa Rita mountains are east of Tubac and are very rugged and steep ranges.  The sun was shining on the mountains in the late afternoon and highlighted the peaks.  

Santa Rita mountains.

 We had a difficult time on the way back trying to decide where to stop for dinner.  The three candidates were:  Village Inn (free pie Wednesday), Argenziano's (great Italian meals) and Manuel's in Green Valley.  Manuel's is an upscale Mexican restaurant with great authentic  Mexican food.  We've stopped there many times in the past and would put them just behind Guadalajara as one of our favorite Mexican restaurants in the Tucson area.  We both enjoyed our meals very much and they had cold Dos XX and margaritas to top the meal off.

When we turned on to Sahuarita road off of Old Nogales highway and drove a mile or so we could see the traffic light at Houghton rd and Sahuarita from about 8 miles away.  You truly can see forever out here in the desert.

We got home in time to watch a couple tv programs and see the Univ of Illinois beat Georgia Tech in basketball.  Each year they have the teams from the ACC and Big Ten play each other over 2 consecutive nights.  The games resulted in 6 wins for each conference with my Univ of MD team winning also.  Win win for me.  I hope this is going to be a good year for both Illinois and Maryland.