The rest of Tucson

I hope you have hunkered down with a bag of popcorn and a large soda, Reader, because this is going to be a big post, too.  I'm going to cover the trail ride and my trip to Sabino Canyon (i.e. the rest of my time in Tucson) before we get to the weekend in Phoenix!

Oddly enough, the horseback trail ride was one of the first pieces to fall into place for this trip. I am surely no champion equestrian.  Once, in Girl Scouts, I was the party-pooper who held back my group because I didn't want to go faster than a leisurely trot.  But something about the desert, something about Arizona, just begged to be explored on horseback!

I did some googling and found Houston's Horseback Riding, which not only offers two-hour trail rides but also professes on its website to teach toddlers how to ride, so I knew I was safe.  I booked my ride, and then found out that Josh was able to join me, and our plan was set!

On Thursday morning, we drove out to the ranch on the east side of Tucson, adjacent to the Saguaro National Park.  (The park is split into two districts - the west side, where I was at the Desert Museum, and the east side, where Houston's is.)  

There was a separate group already there, brushing their horses, and we met Liz, our guide.  Liz was a college student home for spring break, and she had been riding at the ranch since she was six!  She was fabulous and super patient with all of my questions.

Oh, yes.  Here's a glimpse of the starting point for our ride:

We met our horses and got the tutorial about commands.  My horse was Maui, a former rodeo horse!  Both Maui and Josh's horse, Bo, were 18-20 years old and were a little less spritely than Liz's Pacifico, who was around six years old.  Don't mistake that as complaining, though!  I was just fine with our docile, sweet horses.

And then we were off!  The two-hour ride took us along a road before we entered the national forest.  Liz talked to us about horseback riding, Gila monsters, summer Arizona monsoons, and of course, the saguaros.  We also saw a jackrabbit, which is a rabbit with enormous ears.

Josh and I were both really happy with the ride.  It was great to have a knowledgeable, fun guide who could explain the sights to us (not to mention help us ride our horses), and it was such a unique experience to have.  It was totally worth it, and like the Desert Museum, I would recommend it to anyone who has a couple of hours free in Tucson.

Okay.  My next recommendation is for Sabino Canyon, which I explored on Friday morning before going to one of Josh's games.  Sabino Canyon is in the outskirts of Tucson in the foothills of the Santa Catalina mountains.  This place is super popular with both tourists (you can either walk to the top or ride a tram) and local hikers, runners, and cyclists.  Thus, it was an activity that I thought safely combined solo tourism - like I wrote about yesterday - and tourism by foot, which I've written about before.

But lest one gets too comfortable...

Venomous wildlife!!?

I drove out to the canyon and parked in the lot, which was quite full already with people doing their morning workouts.  I had planned to combine a run with some hiking and tourism.  There are loads of other trails, but the main Sabino Canyon hiking trail is a seven-mile roundtrip out-and-back, up this narrow two-lane paved road.  It seems like the only motor vehicles allowed on the road are the trams, and even cyclists are barred from riding between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., making it a very pedestrian-friendly experience.

I started shuffling along, my legs sore from the previous day's horseback riding.  It seemed mostly flat for a couple of miles, but I wondered why I felt so sluggish.  (It turned out, of course, that it was actually a low-grade climb the whole way.)  Then the third mile really ramped up.  I took some convenient take-a-photo-catch-my-breath breaks.

I got to the top, just a tiny bit short of eight miles thanks to some meandering I did earlier in the run, and saw this sign:

 
Anyway, you totally can't read it, but in the midst of all that cactus, it says the Phoneline Trail (another popular route) was one-half mile up the trail.  So I decided to trot along for a few more minutes to get my eight miles.  And then it became so joyously, uproariously fun that I went a little further and ended up with nine.  I like to imagine that I looked like an agile mountain goat scampering along the switchbacks.  I'm sure that's not true.

But what is true is that the trail went up, up, up with a snap of my fingers.  (Well, and some steps.)  Five minutes later, I was way, way up high.  As high, in fact, as a saguaro, as this photo will demonstrate:

 
The next picture is a little dark, but can you see that little loop-around in the lower-left corner of the picture?  That's where the paved route ended - again, like half a mile before.

And it just went up and up and up.  Cacti, way up high.

 And I even came across some dead saguaros, which for some reason kind of scared me.

I turned around and minutes later rejoined the paved trail, passing a few hikers on the switchbacks.  Then I learned just how much of a slope with which I had been fighting on the way up.  Oooh weeee, I went a lot faster on the second half than the first half!

Like the horseback trail ride and the Desert Museum: if you are into outdoor activities and looking for a long walk in Tucson, this place rules.  I got to feel like I was out on the trail exploring a new part of the desert, but I always felt safe.  And of course, it doesn't hurt that it was gorgeous.

Afterward, I scurried back to the hotel, checked out, watched a baseball game and then drove up lonely I-10 all the way back to Phoenix, where I would meet Nathalia, her husband, and his parents for the weekend.  More on that tomorrow!  (Don't worry, the cactus parade won't stop.)