On a Mission South of Tucson. . .

The High Plains Drifters and our friends set out on a day trip south of Tucson last week to look at the artsy crafty treasures to be found in the town of Tubac, “Where History and Art Meet”, located about half way between Tucson and the Mexican/U.S. border town Nogales.

The real treasure we found – where art and history really do meet -- was in the Mission San Xavier Del Bac on the Tohono O’odham Indian Reservation, not far from Tucson.  The Tohono O’odham, meaning ‘desert people’ is the name of the Native Americans who populate the Sonoran Desert in southeast Arizona and northwest Mexico.


The present structure was built between 1783 and 1797, long before the area was to come under U.S. control as a result of the Gadsden Purchase in 1853.



The Mission was founded by Jesuit Father Eusebio Francisco Kino nearly a century before this structure was started. Kino, born in what is now Italy, joined the Spanish order and was assigned to Spain’s Colony in Mexico. History considers him both priest and explorer, as he made some 40 expeditions into the area now known as Arizona and others up the Baja before his death in 1711 in Sonora.



The missionaries were forced to leave San Xavier in 1828 but returned in 1911- a year before Arizona attained its statehood.




This Kino Mission is the only one in the nation still active in preaching to the Tohono O’odham.


The mission’s Spanish mission architecture – the domes, carvings, flying buttresses distinguish it from other Spanish missions. It is called “The White Dove of the Desert”.

If You Go:

The Mission is 9 miles south of Tucson, off Interstate 19, exit 92 on San Xavier Road. Hours: Daily 7 – 5 Mission (no photos allowed during services) Museum daily 8 – 4:30 p.m. No admission fee for either; donations welcomed.

And Down the Road. . .

Just south of Tubac (exit 29 off Interstate 19) is Tumacacori National Historical Park where you’ll find the abandoned Mission San Jose de Tumacacori – visited by Kino in 1691. It was after the King of Spain expelled the Jesuits, replacing them with Franciscans that the work was started on the massive adobe church that was never completed and ultimately abandoned in 1848. It is also worth a visit.



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Arizona Gems: Tubac and Tumacacori

Road trips never let us down.  There is always some wonderful place to be discovered when setting out; sometimes by pure happenstance and other times by recommendations of friends.  The latter is what took us to Tubac and Tumacacori, Arizona.

Our Tucson friends, Jeanie and Hal, graciously loaded us up and headed out on a spectacular day of discovery (for us) last week. And while you are trying to get your tongues twisted around those names let me tell you where you can find them. . .

The two are only about three miles apart, an hour south of Tucson along Interstate 19  not far from the Mexico/US border.  They are bordered to the east by Madera Canyon.

Tubac, established in 1752, is today “Where Art and History Meet” according to its promotional materials. The town’s Presidio of San Ignacia de Tubac was the first military base in Arizona and  first European settlement.  In 1860 it was the largest town in Arizona.

Today the small town is an art-lovers paradise.   Galleries and showrooms, studios and retail shops fill the old adobe and wood-frame buildings. Fine art to Mexican made trinkets are to be found as you wander through the streets and plazas.


The streets and shops were pretty empty on the morning of our visit – quite a change from when they swell with the crowds who flock to its many special annual events like October’s Anza Days, December’s Luminaria Nights, February’s Car Nuts Show and also in February, the Tubac Festival of the Arts – one of the oldest art fairs in the southwest, featuring musicians and artists from throughout the United States and Canada.


For history buffs, the town’s Presidio State Historic Park, site of the oldest Spanish military outpost in Arizona,  includes the 1885 School, a visitors center and museum, picnic grounds and the Juan Bautista de Ana National Historic Trail.

While the town has numerous eateries as well, it was a place ‘just down the road’ that Jeanie and Hal recommended and are we ever glad they did!

Wisdom’s Café opened its doors along the old Nogales Highway back in 1944. Like so many mom-and-pop businesses, it closed  those  doors in 1979 when the newly opened Interstate 19 diverted traffic.  By 1980 it had come back to life with the help of owners’ Howard and Petra Wisdom’s adult children. . .it’s now a ‘destination’ place and has been written up in the New York Times.  (I couldn’t resist snapping a photo of the chicken in the parking lot.)

Next time we’ll eat dessert first, here because we had no room for Wisdom’s World Famous Fruit Burro, a crispy burrito filled with your choice of fruit and topped with vanilla ice cream.

Then it was a bit further south for a stop at the Santa Cruz Chili and Spice Co. and Ranch Museum where we stocked up on packages, jars and boxes of every kind of spice imaginable – especially the chili’s.

We didn’t have time to visit  Abe’s Old Tumacacori Bar, where octogenarian Abe Trujillo has been pouring cool ones for more than 60 years at his family’s bar.  We missed the moose head and some 1,000 empty whiskey bottles that are on display but we know there’ll be another visit to this area  one day and hopefully Abe will still be pouring. . .

IF YOU GO:

Tubac: Tubac Chamber of Commerce, 50 Bridge Road, 85646, phone 520-398-2704, www.TubacAZ.com

Wisdom’s Café, 1931 E. Frontage Rd., Tumacacori, AZ 85640, 520-398-2397 (1/2 mile north of the Tumacacori Mission and three miles south of Tubac).  www.wisdomscafe.com

Wisdom’s also has a vacation rental casita across the street from the restaurant.  We took a look and it is beautifully decorated in Southwest style. Rates: $79 – $99 per night, two-night minimum. For information:  520-991-9652 or email: celeste@wisdomscafe.com

Santa Cruz Chili and Spice Co., 1868 E. Frontage Road, Tumacacori, Arizona, 86640, 520-398-2591, www.santacruzchili.com for hours.

Abe’s Old Tumacacori Bar, 1900 E. Frontage Road, 520-398-1227, open daily from 2 p.m. – 2 a.m.

Arizona: Falling in love with an old charmer

The old charmer had won our hearts more than a year ago and back then, we’d barely met. This year we spent the night together. . .it only solidified the love affair.

The High Plains Drifters wound our way through the Pacific Northwest, through Nevada, and into Utah before reaching Arizona on the third day of the Winter Road Trip.

Our destination was Prescott Arizona’s Hassayampa Inn – the old charmer that we’d been smitten with since we walked through it more than a year ago.  Luckily, The Scout found a Saturday night $129 rate (free parking and Internet) which assured us we’d be spending our last night on the road here.



The 78-room, four-story hotel, at the time it opened in 1927 was one of the few hotels in the country to begin as a public institution – more than 400 stockholders had purchased shares of stock at $1 per share to fund its construction and furnishings.



Back then, bathrooms were down the hall, but a multi-million restoration in 1985 resulted in numerous modern conveniences, including en suite facilities in the now-67-room hotel but didn’t take away the old-time charm of staying in them.

It also sported the town’s only elevator – which is still in use but operated by hotel staff.

Once the cage rattled itself closed around us in the 1927 vintage elevator and we took off with a jerk, I felt much better having someone who knew what they were doing at those controls. Although that red phone. . .hmmm, wonder what it was used for?

The hotel is in the heart of this university town, some 90 minutes north of Phoenix. It’s name is the same as the  Hassayampa (haw –saw-yahm-paw) River, just north of town. It is an Apache word for “the river that loses itself” or “the upside down river.” The 100 mile river sinks below the surface only to appear a bit further away.


Back in its heyday Will Rogers, Clark Gable and General Blackjack Pershing were among its guests. In recent years Tom Selleck, Joan Rivers, Alec Baldwin, The Beach Boys and George W. Bush have been on its ‘who’s who’ list.

They’ve undoubtedly admired the Talavera tile fireplace, the etched glass, the hand-painted ceiling, the leather couches and Castilian walnut furniture just as we do each time we entered the lobby.


At the time the Inn opened it was heralded as the grand jewel of Prescott.

We think it’s still quite a gem!


If You Go:

Hassayampa Inn, 122 E. Gurley St., Prescott, AZ 86301, 800-322-1927, www.hassayampainn.com

Thanks for visiting this Travel Tuesday – hope you’ll come back regularly! On Thursday we’ll step back from the road trip and reveal the identify of the guest chef on our fall Celebrity Silhouette cruise. . .you’ll never guess who it was!

Arizona: Where “PC” Means. . .

. . .Pure Christmas!

The High Plains Drifters (that’s us, you know) hail from a ‘PC’ state, but in Washington that means, “Politically Correct”.

And that means some stutter and stammer out watered down, lukewarm greetings this time of year for fear of: 1) hurting someone’s feelings, 2) dissing some other holiday, or 3) being sued by someone for not being that kind of “PC”.

I can tell you, that from what we've seen, we much prefer Arizona PC in December!!!

 Our introduction to the season came in Prescott, Arizona, a college town of some 40,000 that’s also  popular with retirees and serves as a weekend getaway destination for those living in the Scottsdale/Phoenix area. We spent our third night here on our Southwest Winter Road Trip.

We’ve been taken with the town since our first visit  there a year ago, but now I am enchanted by it.  You see, it is Arizona’s Christmas City!

Banners hang on light posts throughout the downtown proclaiming it so. Advertisements fill tourism magazine pages. Residents announce it proudly. Even in Scottsdale they tell you about their neighboring Christmas City to the north.

“Are you in town for the Christmas Light parade?” the clerk asked when  we checked into our hotel in the heart of Prescott.  It was the first of many celebrations this month, he said, describing a series of PC events.

“We are heading to the parade,” we told a couple dining near us shortly thereafter.  “This is the small one,” they cautioned us, “The big one is next Friday. It lasts two and a half hours”

This one, their Christmas Light Parade, about 45 minutes in duration, brought out hordes of people. They’d been gathering along the route as we strolled to dinner. Even the spectators were in a ‘light’ mood; decorating their own viewing stands with lights or waving lighted wands at the floats as they passed.


By the time we arrived back to the parade route the sidewalks were filled, in some places, people were standing six-deep, often calling out  and waving to friends who paraded past.

Cheers and clapping erupted as each new display came into view.

Among the Christmas celebrations scheduled for this month are the 30th Annual Christmas Parade and the 58th Annual Prescott Courthouse Christmas Lighting, (hugely popular events) and the Acker Musical Showcase which features live music throughout the downtown in stores, restaurants, bars and galleries.



It was music to our PC-dulled ears, when we were told that during the Christmas celebration calendar, there’s also a night when children gather on the courthouse lawn to hear a reading of “The Christmas Story”.

It’s a pretty special time in Prescott, the Poster Child of Pure Christmas.  But Christmas – not “Holiday” -- celebrations are taking place all over Arizona; I’ll tell you about them  as our jolly, pre-holly-day travels through the state continue. And next year we may just be celebrating Christmas in Prescott!

If You Go:


For More Information about the city: Prescott Chamber of Commerce and Visitor Information Center, 117 W. Goodwin St., 86303, phone, 800-266-7534.

For Christmas events and travel information, click this link: Visit Prescott

TPThursday: A Vermilion Vignette

The scenery had been stunning in its expansive, empty way; the roadways long and lonesome as the High Plains Drifters (our nom de blog for the next few weeks) made our way south to Arizona on this Western Winter Road Trip.

Having crossed our snow-dusted 3,022-foot Snoqualmie Pass in Washington on a gray Thanksgiving morning, we were delighted to find  elevations further south, like the Le Fevre Overlook at 6,700-feet, to be shirt-sleeve warm and sunny.

In keeping with our travel style, we followed a road less traveled  on this segment of our trip. It was Highway 89A, from St. George, Utah a route that wound its way through northern Arizona (instead of southern Utah) through the rather sparsely- forested Kaibab National Forest.



We had no expectations – no ‘must see’ places – for the day, only a plan to reach Prescott, Arizona before sunset. And it is those kind of days, we’ve found with travel, when the magic happens.

A roadside overlook just outside this forested land is where we had our introduction to the Vermilion Cliffs National Monument, a mind-boggling vast area of some 293,000 acres of plateaus, canyons and cliffs. Two Native American ladies were some distance away quietly setting up tables to sell artwork and jewelry. The silence, the absolute silence and the view. . .I still struggle to find the words to describe that moment and its magic:

For miles the roadway cut through that ‘valley floor’ itself an elevation of 5,000 feet, with those cinnabar cliffs towering from  3,100 – 6,500-feet above us.

We were the only travelers on this stretch of road for some time and could only imagine what it had been like for Sharlot Hall (1870-1943), a journalist, poet and the Historian of the Arizona Territory as she traveled this same area by horse-drawn wagons some hundred years ago.

The Vermilion Cliffs are an outdoor enthusiasts playground – hiking trails abound.  Next time, we’ll allow ourselves some time to stop and explore the area.  We passed two character-looking mom-and-pop places that offered overnight accommodations:  Lee’s Ferry Lodge and Marble Canyon Lodge.

If You Go:
The Vermilion Cliffs are bounded on the east by Glen Canyon National Recreation area, on the west by Kaibab National Forest, to the north by the Utah border and to the south, 89A (389 if coming from Fredonia).

Services are limited between St. George, Utah and Fredonia, Arizona; the bookend cities of this loop. However, there’s is a service station and convenience store at Pipe Springs, about 15 miles west of Fredonia.

The Paiute Indians have opened a museum across the road from the service station at Pipe Springs National Monument. Allow some time to visit it, the historic fort and cabins.

You can learn more about the woman I mentioned at the Sharlot Hall Museum, 415 W. Gurley, Prescott, AZ. (In 1927 she signed a contract to house her collection of history and memorabilia in the building that had in 1864 been the Governor’s Mansion.)

That’s it for today’s Travel Photo Thursday. Be sure to visit Budget Travelers Sandbox for more photos.

And for those who missed the first two segments of High Plains Drifter’s Winter Road trip, you might be interested in:
* A Thanksgiving Jackpot
* A Long Lonesome Road: To Stop or Not
Hope you’ll come back Saturday when I’ll tell you what “P.C.” means in Arizona!