Since we were back in Tucson we took the opportunity to have lunch with my classmate Tom and his wife Jackie who spend the winter in Green Valley and the summer back in North Dakota. Last time we had lunch with them we got to talking about books and Jackie mentioned that she was an author with five books out. Jackie writes under the pseudonym Nora Barker, search Google for norabarker.com for Jackie's web page. They are available in e-book form for only about $5 each. I bought “Murder in Primary Colors” through Barnes & Noble, but have yet to read it. It’s a murder mystery that takes place at a small Midwestern college. As soon as I can manage to figure out how to order books from other sites for my Nook, I will check out the other four books. Thanks Tom and Jackie for joining us for lunch.
Today we took a drive down to Nogales, AZ then to Sierra Vista and back to Green Valley. One of our intended destinations was Tumacacori National Historical Park. However, first we came to Tubac and stopped. Tubac has the Tubac Presidio State Park which we visited and then we toured the many shops in town. By the time we had done that it was lunch time and when we finished with lunch we had to skip Tumacacori and continue on our drive. Oh well, that leaves us something to see next time we stop here.
Arizona actually closed the State Park because of budget shortfalls, but the Citizens of Tubac decided to operate the park on a volunteer basis.They are proud of the park’s heritage and rightfully so.
The Presidio (Fort) of Tubac was garrisoned by the Spanish in 1752, making it the first town established in Arizona by Europeans.
This is the church and I’m sorry but I can’t remember when it was built.
This is a Spanish soldier's uniform from the 1750’s.
The schoolhouse was built in 1885.
This photograph of Tubac’s Presidio was taken around 1890.
Besides the old buildings the State Park has an excellent museum.
Here are two types of Molino stones. The first is a rotary mill.
The type shown here is the hand powered style.
Speaking of hand powered, how would you like to saw planks with this saw? But then I can remember my dad (Rueben) and our neighbor (Maurice) had to trim the width of many a board when we remodeled our house in the mid-fifties. And that was with a hand saw because we did not have a skill saw or a table saw. I can even remember trying my hand at it and the blisters I got as a result.
These are pictures from inside the museum.
Some miner’s supplies are shown here.
Ranching was very important to this part of the country.
One of the buildings held about 18 paintings by William Ahrendt depicting life in the west. They all were very interesting.
This one is called “The Early Days Of Phoenix”.
Early Tubac.
Tubac is known for its many shops with arts and crafts. There were a lot of unique varities of metal sculptures, glasswork and beautiful ceramics.
We ate lunch at Marie’s Grill. The food was excellent and reasonably priced.
When we left Tubac we drove to Nogales and drove scenic Hwy 82 to the NE. It turned out not to be very scenic, but we did end up in Sierra Vista where our friends, Jerry and Donna, from Minnesota have a grandson taking his AIT (Advanced Individual Training), at least that’s what it was called when I was in the Army. He is going into the Military Intelligence field. We gave Zach a call but could not get ahold of him so left a message and went to a small museum on base. He had not called back by 5:00PM so we headed back to Green Valley. We found out later that he didn’t get our message until he got out of class around 6:00PM. That was too bad as it would have been nice to visit with him.
After leaving Fort Huachuca we headed back to Green Valley when I spotted a sign at the Sonoita turnoff that said Madera Canyon. I knew where that was and it would be a short cut for us to get home. The road got a little worse than these pictures show, but not too bad. The bad part was that it was getting dark and we came upon a sign that said “Caution this area is known for drug smuggling activity”---not a good place to be at sunset or dark. Now, do you think Sandy might have been getting nervous? You betcha!!!
Until next time,
Dave and Sandy
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