On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
J R in WV
When I saw the several beautiful garden posts, I realized that I had taken photos of “gardens” in Tucson, when I stayed at one of my favorite hotels there, Lodge on the Desert. This hotel was built way out on the desert floor, far from old Tucson, back in the 1920s or ’30s. Since then it has been enlarged, and the city of Tucson has greatly expanded past the Lodge.
Our tiny ranch in AZ is more than 2 hours SE of Tucson, so when we have business or pleasure in the city, we try to stay at the Lodge, which is very comfortable, and not expensive for the area. The plantings are full of local foliage and the buildings are very in character for the South West desert country — very thick masonry walls, very silent inside perhaps excepting overflights from the local USAF base right in town.
This is a really nice room at the Lodge on the Desert. The fireplace is so traditional, as is the furniture and feel. I thought it might help some folks relax, as I always do staying there.
Old plantings with a walkway between buildings at Lodge on the Desert. Amazing plants living well in the Sonoran Desert of southern Arizona. You can see that the Lodge is composed of many buildings, masonry, the older buildings appear to be adobe, I imagine the newer ones are more modern materials, but out there you can’t really be sure.
I think these two foreground plants are called Spanish Daggers, and you can see that they are surrounded by other typical desert plants. Sorry I can’t really tell you more about the plants, I just thought they were great looking plantings and took some pictures one afternoon while I stayed there.
A walkway between the buildings, with an amazing variety of plantings. Cacti, agave, all kinds of Arizona Desert plants.
Fuzzy-looking cactus with blooms. Do Not Touch!!! No plant in the desert is safe to touch. Even if it looks like grass, it will have vicious edges and cut you. This fuzz is probably impossible to get out once you touch it. But so pretty…
Close up of the fuzzy-looking cactus in bloom.
Barrel Cactus in bloom… this guy is doing really well too, probably because it’s gardened and irrigated. We have some of these around our place, they do pretty well up there at 5500 feet too, but I doubt they bloom like this every year.
Tucson is around 2500 feet IIRC, much like the southern WV town I grew up in. Phoenix is 1700 feet, and gets really hot compared to Tucson. Altitude makes the weather in this country.
This is our cabin in the Desert mountains near Gleeson. You can see the solar panels, the water tank, the little house, and behind is the southern end of the Dragoon mountain range, which runs along the western side of the Sulfur Springs valley.
JPL
The lodge looks cozy. Cactus plants are so lovely and I love all the different variations.
wasdeaconblues
Thank you for these, they’re really beautiful.
You know, I worry I won’t ever be able to travel again in the US. My (immigrant) wife doesn’t feel safe in many parts of the country now, and to be honest I don’t blame her.
These pictures, and this series, helps in these times. Thank you all for the look into different parts of the world.
raven
So is your ranch in Sierra Vista?
raven
Out in the Saguaro National Park 73.
piratedan
the local term for the cacti featured in pics 5 and 6 is Silver Torch, I believe….
OzarkHillbilly
Just look at all the weeds!
Also, looked it up, Tuscon is at 2,389′.
MazeDancer
Great photos!
raven
@OzarkHillbilly: Tucson was one of the destinations for people from Champaign-Urbana in the 70’s along with Boulder. My buddy lived there for almost 50 years and then popped up and moved to Ft Meyers. Fishing in Mexico was one of his favorite things and it just got to the point that it wasn’t worth it to go down there anymore. Now he yak fishes in Florida!
piratedan
@OzarkHillbilly: that’s probably true for the basin around the Santa Cruz, but since we’re ringed by mountain ranges in almost every direction, a good bit of the city has spread into the foothills of each mountain range as the city has sprawled. Probably a good 20-30 percent of the city is higher up now, especially true in the Catalinas and Rincons where the more well to do folks reside.
raven
@piratedan: I had friends who lived in a cave in Pink Granite Canyon back in the day. Man that town was fun back when Freaky Frank and the Broken Spokes played!
Aleta
Really nice photos. Make me wish I was there. Thanks.
OzarkHillbilly
@raven: Some friends of mine used to go down for the Tucson Gem & Mineral Show every year. Made a ton of money parking cars, believe it or not. Not to mention spending time in the desert during wonderful Feb. weather. I’m sure Digger conducted some gem business while he was at it.
raven
@OzarkHillbilly: There were a number of interesting businesses there!!!
Aleta
I was somewhere in Tuscon once. There was a honeybee researcher at the university and my friend went there to consult him so I went along. I was very young and for some reason depressed. My friend told me it was a “mafia town” and made it seem like a threatening place. I’d been through some bad towns in Texas so I never questioned what he said, but now (looking it up) I see its mafia family fame was long long ago. He was prone to exaggeration. Regret I didn’t spend my time looking at more cacti.
raven
@Aleta: Capone had a place in Rocky Point (Puerto Penasco)
raven
@Aleta: Are you a bee person?
Albatrossity
Thanks for these! I really like Tucson and the area around there. Interesting birds, reptiles, and plants, as well as gorgeous vistas!
Mustang Bobby
I visited Tucson in the early 90’s for a job interview at a private school and really loved it, even if it was really hot. I took a trip out to the Museum of the Desert west of town and was really impressed with it. I love the architecture and the xeriscaping; we tried that when we lived in Albuquerque.
Yeah, no, I didn’t get the job.
JPL
The Mission San Xavier del Bac is the oldest in AZ and the architecture is interesting. I visited Tuscon decades ago, but I still remember the mission and the food.
@Aleta: Scottsdale had a strong mafia influence in the past, but I didn’t know about Tuscon.
raven
@JPL:
Tales from the Morgue: The Mafia in Tucson
JanieM
Thanks for the glimpse of sucha different landscape from what I’m used to! I’ve been in the SW a few times, including a two-week hike in the Grand Canyon long ago, but I never got to Tucson. The local history and lore are interesting too!
Sab
Watergirl: I just saw a new (to me) pie filter critter. Is it a seal sitting on a cupcake? It has an Avelune feel to it.
The critter is plump and yellow, with a tiny pointed purple hat and BIG eyes. No visible ears, but those might be under the hat.
piratedan
@Mustang Bobby: I think it underwent a name change is now known as the Desert Museum, it’s taken for granted by a lot of locals but it has a very unique charm to it with its enclosures for the local critters to its hummingbird aviary. We have a membership there and they pay attention to both the fauna and flora.
J R in WV
@raven:
“So is your ranch in Sierra Vista?”
Nope, but that’s where we go to shop and go out to dinner. We’re east of Tombstone on the eastern edge of the Dragoon Mountains, a couple of very rough miles NW of Gleeson, an old mining ghost town.
The NW corner of our property is a 1913 brass US Geology survey marker at the top of a steep knoll. The mines at Gleeson were primarily for silver with lead and zinc as by-product metals, and opened up in the late 1800s.
There was a big ranch up there, and some 30 years ago it was subdivided up into tracts that by deed can’t be further divided. So you have square and rectangular tracts of 10-20-40 acres drawn on a very NOT flat land surface. In the deeds there’s the assumption that there would be a HOA, but the ownership is mostly anarchists, so not going to happen. The deeds allow us to keep a minor amount of livestock, horses, pigs, etc.
As in so many remote rural places, the county turns a semi-unoffical blind eye on building out there. They require the electrical be done by an approved person, approved by the local power coop that is. Which we had one of. And an approved septic installer with years of local experience. And your address number in case of emergency.
The house is 24×48 and built with Structural Insulated Panels, two layers of rigid OSB with foam insulation between, in our case 6 ” of Styrofoam in the walls and 6″ of polyurethane foam inside the roof panels for R42. Since the walls are solid, air penetration is near zero, except for what bleeds through the doors and windows. We barely get enough for the tiny wood stove to burn all night.
ETA: The roof is steel as are the eaves, covered with pale steel, and the walls are coated with Portland stucco about 1.5″ thick. But for the sliding glass doors, it would be pretty fire resistant, but for the glass windows. If I had the energy I would put in sliding steel barn doors and steel shutters to make it more fire resistant.
At 5,500 feet, we’re over a thousand feet above the Sulfur Springs Valley floor to the east, and a great view of that valley and the multiple mountain ranges that surround it. The north end of the Dragoons has a National Historic Monument called Cochise Stronghold, where the Apache stood off the US Cavalry for several years, until Cochise, dying, told his tribe they should surrender to the horse soldiers, as holed up in the high mountain redoubt was no way for an Apache to live.
They buried him somewhere in the mountains, and drove their herds of horses across the grave so that it couldn’t be seen or found, and rode out of the Dragoons with a white flag. Sad story of one more genocide.
The whole place is as historic as that story, everywhere. Gold mining by individuals continues all around the area to this day. Cattle ranching and crop farming and orchards all grown with fossil water thousands of years old pumped with abandon, til when it runs out, no one will able to live there, and the Sandhill Cranes will have to find another place to overwinter.
If you go to Google Maps, search for Gleeson AZ. Then pick the 3D option to see how rough it is… IN the distant past I’m pretty sure I posted photos of the house a couple of times, with views of the surrounding territory, perhaps Watergirl could link to those?
susanna
Tucson, and flora/fauna are now on vacation list. Love the architecture and the lodge looks inviting for a stay.
The pictures shared here, of all variety, are like a running adventure, nature and visually alluring vacation planner. Thank you everyone who submits!
J R in WV
And since I talked about the tiny ranch, 9,9 acres of rough hilside, I asked WaterGirl, aka WonderGurl, to add a pic I sent her of the camp house. 3 friends and I got if under roof, wired and plumbed in two 3 month sessions over two winters. Then I got a local guy to help and finished the interior over the next two winters. Inside the walls are painted wildly various pale pastels that feel like desert colors, every wall or ceiling panel a different color. Yellow, pink, green, lavender, etc.
Snug, I have a small propane heater that cna keep it warm, and the smallest wood stove I could order from the local hardware place in Elfrida, which can run you out if you let it get to hot. I have to open a window some wintery nights if I get the little wood stove too fired up.
It’s remote, but the neighbors are good folks.
JanieM
@J R in WV: Nice to see what the ranch actually looks like.
I’m envious!
Winston
@J R in WV: YOU ABSOLUTLY KNOW NOTHING ABOUT TUCSON. YOU ARE A FRAUD JUST LIKE YOUR HERO, DONALD TRUMP.
WaterGirl
@Sab: It is and Avalune special! It’s in honor of people who “sea lion”!