Aussies visit Day 3

It was good that we went sightseeing yesterday rather than today.  It began to rain early in the morning and continued all day.  It wasn't a downpour but enough to make it nasty walking around outside without an umbrella.  We adjusted our plans and it was decided that we would visit the Arizona State Museum on the Univ of Arizona campus.

The museum is on the edge of the center of the campus and parking spaces are very difficult to find.  I managed to find a space at an one hour parking meter.  Once we were parked we walked a couple blocks to the museum and Gerry, Vivian and Patrick toured it.  I didn't sign up for the tour and waited for them in the lobby.  Since the metered parking had an 1 hour limit, I had to keep feeding it quarters.

Gerry took a number of photos in the museum and was very impressed with the pottery & display depicting early Indian life in the Arizona area.  She said some were very beautiful and delicate.

 

I stopped at a bar/cafe to get a coffee and also to find a dry place to sit down.  There was a Starbucks down the street but I don't like to spend my money on the high priced Starbucks coffee.  Well, my plain cup of coffee cost $2.50 at the "cheaper" place.  To add insult to injury the coffee wasn't any good.   Lesson learned.

This was the view from the car with the rain coming down heavier and a small river of water running down the street.  It looked like a neat area with a lot of small shops, restaurants and bars.  I think a trip down there for dinner one evening is in the cards.

Once the three musketeers returned we started further downtown to look over the "Old Pueblo" area but the rain would have made it miserable to walk around and view the buildings.  Vivian asked if there were any expensive homes in Tucson and when I mentioned the beautiful homes on the east side of Tucson, we changed course and headed for some house viewing.

There are a number of beautiful homes in the northeast section of Tucson at the base of the Santa Catalina mountains on the way to Mt Lemmon.  They are either $1 million homes or have million dollar views.  We took a number of photos but didn't want to invade everyone's privacy so limited the photos to the two below. 

 It was starting to get close to "happy hour" and we decided to take them to a local western bar.  Tucson McGraw's Cantina has a patio with a nice view looking south toward the Santa Rita mountains in the distance.  Once again the rain and cool weather forced us inside for our drinks.  It was meant to be a short visit so they could enjoy some of the local flavor and we moved on after one drink.

I think Patrick was ready to buy a 10 gallon hat and stay there but he was over ruled by the 3 of us.  He would make a good cowboy and looked ready to round up some doggies.

Nobody was ready for a large meal so we headed for another local bar/restaurant called Montgomery's.  They have good sandwiches and cold beer so it was easy to pick it.  Rueben sandwiches aren't common or available in Australia so they ordered one of them and also a fish and chips dinner.  Both were pleased with their meals and liked the atmosphere at the restaurant.  We had non-stop conversations and learned more about each other.

By this time, it was too late to do much and since they were leaving in the morning, we decided to call it time to return to the hotel.  We sat in a bar area at the hotel and enjoyed the fireplace and more conversations.  As a matter of fact, we closed the bar down and talked for a couple hours more.  Lots of catching up about the family and our lives, so conversation came easily.

We finally decided it was time for us to head home and let them catch some zzzzzzs.  It was after 11pm when we arrived back at the motorhome and we headed to bed.  Tired, but we had a great day.

That was our day, how was yours?