Tucson, AZ

Janet and I just spent a few days in the great city of Tucson.  We were able to visit with family members that we had not seen in years and take in the desert panoramas.  The deserts surrounding Tucson are one of the few places on earth where Saguaro Cacti grow.  These amazing plants can live up to 200 years and do not grow arms until they are at least 75 years old.  This is probably the first image that comes into my head when I think of Arizona.

 

Sunset in Saguaro National Park

While in the Tucson area, Janet and I visited the Biosphere2 research facility.  As many of you may know this was used for an experiment in the 90's to see if a team could live independently using only the resources in the various environments in the closed domes.  The plants were to supply food and to maintain the oxygen levels for the inhabitants.  Inside the biodomes are various environments including rainforest, desert and ocean.  If you are ever in the area, I would highly recommend touring the facility.  For those of you wondering where Biosphere1 is just look around you, it's the Earth.

Desert Environment

Ocean Environment

The tunnel to the lung

Biosphere2

 

 

 

 Another place we visited was the San Xavier del Bac Mission.  Being from California we have seen many missions and this one does not disappoint.  It is actually one of the prettier missions that we have seen.

San Xavier del Bac Mission church interior

San Xavier del Bac Mission

San Xavier del Bac Mission

Stations of the Cross

One last place to talk about was the Asarco open pit copper mine.  Love it or hate it, they invite you to visit and learn more about how the process works.  It is hard to see the way the land is destroyed, but while we still use copper in our everyday lives, it needs to be mined somewhere.  

Asarco Copper Mine

Asarco Copper Mine

We also visited the University of AZ in order to view a photography exhibit of some Ansel Adams prints. Tucson has so much to offer visitors and we plan on coming back in order to see many of the other sites that we missed and to take in the famous Tucson Gem and Mineral show.