Peridot Mesa, Arizona – March 2023 – Wildflower Oasis

Uncategorized

Peridot Mesa is part of a volcanic field in the San Carlos Apache Tribe Reservation. While it is noted for it’s unique geology as a result of the volcanic activity, each spring it becomes a wildflower oasis.

The weather community seems to have found new terms for old occurrences and then over use them, one being ‘superbloom’. I am not sure if this qualifies as a superbloom, but it was fantastic.

When you look closely you can see the poppies mixed in next to the volcanic rocks.

As you make your way up to the top of the mesa, there are spectacular views for 360 degrees.

Once you crest the top you get a view to the east showing the transition from poppies to desert chicory.

It should be noted that the entire mesa is on Apache land so you must pay a $10 per person permit fee before entering. Once you do you are welcome to roam throughout though.

Well worth the $10.

The roads, while dirt, are passable by cars.

It is also open range grazing for the animals.

Peridot Mesa is an amazing place to see wildflowers. It’s remoteness means it is far less crowded than Picacho Peak, and the others.

Nature’s reward for a cool, rainy winter in the desert.

Tucson – March 2023 – Garden Railway Club Open Houses

Architecture, Art, Transportation

The Tucson Garden Railway Club had their annual open houses at 8 different locations around the city. I was able to visit 5 of them.

The first stop was at the Rincon Country West RV Resort. This location has over 1000 mobile homes and RV spaces, primarily for snowbirds. They also seem to have the most palm trees per square mile of anywhere in Arizona.

With all the retirees in the neighborhood they have clubs for everything, including their garden railway club. Their railway set up is permanent.

Many of the buildings were custom built.

The next stop was the Southern Arizona Transportation Museum, located on the grounds of the historic railway station.

Their small garden railway has without a doubt the most impressive railroad artifact next to it, a 157,000 pound Southern Pacific Railway locomotive dating from 1900.

Next stop was a private home in the hills west of downtown. Their backyard setup was nice, as were the views.

Their pet Schnauzer kept watch over the happenings.

The 4th railway setup was in a backyard of a home in Marana. This setup showed you don’t need a lot of space to have a nice setup.

The Grand Finale was a home in Catalina Foothills. The owner, an artist, custom built nearly everything.

In addition he is an avid cacti gardener, with the railway highlighting the vegetation, and vice versa.

The building construction was impressively intricate.

All of the presentations were nice, but this one was the most impressive.

Dragoon, Arizona – March 2023 – Dinosaurs of the Desert

Art

Not far from the Amerind Museum is the Rattlesnake Ranch. While we visited we didn’t see any live snakes, but did see plenty of dinosaur’s – giant metal sculptures.

The only snake we saw was this sculpture.

The sign said if the gate was open you were free to wander about – so we did.

Nearly all of the sculptures were done by Mexican artists.

The grasslands and mountains gave an aura of authenticity to the dinosaurs. Jurassic Park in Arizona.

Mixing ages with a horse against a dinosaur.

A true Arizona feature – a Gila Monster.

There are a few non dinosaur/animal sculptures around including this one honoring the Native Americans who once ruled this area.

If you ever find yourself traversing Southern Arizona on I-10, take a few minutes to check out this great roadside america item.

Benson, Arizona – March 2023 – Riding Through the Boulders

Nature, Transportation

The Amerind Museum is located about 10 miles east of Benson, situated on 1900 acres of land in an area known as Texas Canyon.

This area is known for the giant boulders that are scattered about along Interstate 10 for a 10 mile stretch. These granite boulders are a result of erosion with water working their way through cracks that over millions of years created these great rocks.

It received it’s name Texas Canyon as a result of the early European settlers all coming from that state, displacing the Native who had been here for more than 1000 years.

While the rocks are the most noteworthy part of the area, the grasslands have supported ranches for over 100 years.

A couple times a year the Amerind Museum opens up the trails and roads throughout their land for a ‘fun ride’.

It was 7 miles of bumpy ground down grasses, dirt, rocks and sand, with over 500′ of total elevation gain.

The views however were worth it.

Especially visually interesting was the mix of the grasses, rocks and landscapes in the distance.

There was some evidence of prior homesteads scattered about, including this windmill – still spinning but for no apparent reason.

The area is high enough in elevation there are no cactus, but the random yucca does make an appearance.

A couple of octotillo’s made an appearance as well.

The rocks are huge, as evidenced below with the semi trucks sailing down the interstate dwarfed by the boulders.

As we neared the end of our 7 mile loop we passed this area with rocks more reddish/orange than the other granite ones.

While the fun ride ended up being far more challenging than expected, the views were worth it.

Marana, Arizona – March 2023 – Pinal Air Park

History, Transportation

Arizona is home to many airplane boneyards. The Pinal Air Park in Marana is one for commercial aircraft.

Even before you reach the airport you find the random partially disassembled 747s sitting in the desert.

This McDonnell Douglas MD82 used to fly for China Eastern Airlines. It too sits just offsite of the airport.

Some of the fields surrounding the airport are green from winter rains and irrigation, making a nice contrast with the parked Atlas Air 747 in the background.

For obvious reasons all photos of Pinal Airpark were taken outside the fence, including these 4 vertical stabilizers.

Most seemed to be missing their doors.

Along the front fence is a large collection of American Airline’s CRJs.

The collection is varied, and seemingly randomly parked.

Our final look is this Boeing plan seemingly smiling at us.

Tucson – March 2023 – Views from Above Across the City

Transportation, Nature

After our visit to Sabino Canyon it was time to head back to Ryan Field, with the most direct route back across Tucson.

We popped out of the mountains above Saguaro National Park, in the foreground, with the city spread out beyond.

The Arizona National Golf Club is at the base of the Catalina Mountains. The well watered fairways and greens stand out in this desert landscape.

The foothills have small ridges running along them, with the houses all set up on top of them.

The larger washes in the valley were running with water.

The older single story homes in the city tend to have flat roofs, which can easily be seen as they are white.

From this view you can see that the distance from the University of Arizona campus in the foreground to Davis Monthan Air Force base in the background is not that great.

The smaller two story building in the lower center of this view is the historic train station.

Our final shot of the helicopter tour is a close up of downtown Tucson.

Tyler and the others at Volare Helicopters are a great organization, and provide a truly exceptional experience.

Tucson – March 2023 – Views from Above Mica Mountain & Sabino Canyon

Nature

The highlight of the helicopter tour was headed up over Mica Mountain above Saguaro National Park.

Tyler’s astute piloting lead us up into the canyon, then just enough altitude to get up over to the next one. You knew you were going to clear the next one, but it was still a thrill to see it coming towards us.

Next stop on the tour was going over Reddington Pass. The darker rust color in the wash is the water running off from the recent rain and snow.

We continued to climb, headed for the ridge ahead and on to Bear Canyon.

The highlight of the entire trip was going up into Sabino Canyon.

We went as far as we could up the canyon where, again thanks to the recent rain and snow, was a series of waterfalls.

Tyler hovered us just above the falls and rotated the helicopter so we had a true 360 view before heading back down the canyon.

As we made our way back down the city came back into view.

Once we reached the foothills we began to see the houses directly below us again. For those who want to be remote, yet close to the city, this is the place.

Tucson – March 2023 – Views from Above the Vail area

Architecture, Nature

The helicopter tour continues east toward the Vail area.

The Wilmot Solar Energy Center is a 100 Mw solar field south of the Tucson Airport.

Vail is jokingly known as ‘town between the tracks’, and it is impossible to take an aerial photo without getting a train or two into the shot.

Vail originally was an area of very large ranches that were well out of town. The first developments were well spaced houses.

Vail

Later very large neighborhoods like Rancho Del Lago were developed, with around 1000 houses.

The Rocking K ranch is on of those traditional western ranches with horse riding trails scattered across a large area of the desert.

Today however much of the area is being taken over by the Rocking K Ranch planned neighborhood. This neighborhood will be as large as Rancho Del Lago.

As with much of America there is no going back now as suburbia is well established.

Tucson – March 2023 – Views from Above South and West Tucson

Nature, Transportation

A beautiful Saturday morning provided the perfect setting for a helicopter tour of the Tucson area.

We chose to fly with Volare Helicopter, with the owner Ryan as our pilot. Having flown in airplanes hundreds of times this was my first ride in a helicopter, but Ryan made us feel at ease from the first moment.

After a few minutes explaining the sounds and feels of the 4 seat Robinson 44 helicopter, we were off.

The first noteworthy view was of the Casino del Sol, backed by the smaller hills in the middle of the shot, with the Santa Catalina’s filling the background.

Just a bit further east revealed this expansive view of the entire valley, with downtown Tucson looking quite small compared to the towering Catalina’s in the background.

The Asarco mine filled the view south. An early visit to this mine is detailed here. https://rdzphotographyblog.com/2023/01/25/sahuarita-arizona-january-2023-a-necessary-evil/

Black Mountain is a lava capped mesa on the San Xavier Reservation. While not visible here, the mountain top is home to ruins of an ancient Hohokam fortification.

The mountain is off limits to the public, so this view from above is the only way to see the saguaros growing out of the lava covered hillside.

The Tohono O’odham Nation owns the somewhat symmetrical Desert Diamond Casino. Clearly a light gambling crowd on this Saturday morning.

The Green Valley Pecan orchards extend as far as you can see to the south. The ponds in the foreground are at a concrete plant.

This simple view of the interstate running through the desert provides a great contrast of nature and development.

This is I 19, which runs 60 miles from Tucson to Nogales. It has for it’s entire existence, been the only interstate in the United States to use kilometers instead of miles for the exit numbers and mileage markers.

The Marriott Starr Pass Resort takes up a huge space at the base of the Tucson Mountains.

A couple of close ups of the mountains as we made our way back west.

The view from 1500′ above the ground shows the varied topography of the area – large expanses of flat desert areas, with some smaller mountains backed by the towering ‘sky islands’.

While this is the first in a series of aerial views of Tucson, our tour ended where it started, at Ryan Field on the far west end of town.

Tucson – February 2023 – Conflicted Visit to a Zoo

Nature

Anytime I visit a zoo I have conflicted feelings. On one hand the animals are beautiful, but on the other it is sad to see them caged up in less than natural settings. I understand it can be educational to children and others, but at what cost to the animals.

Setting aside these conflicts for a couple of hours I stopped by the Reid Park Zoo.

The zoo is fairly small by most standards, but is very popular. The walkways were crowded on this sunny Sunday afternoon.

One of the first stops was an enclosed aviary that you walked through.

Another building had some terrariums that housed reptiles.

The flamingo’s had a bit more space.

The peacock as well seemed to have room to roam.

The squirrel monkey with a solemn look.

A similar look from the ring tailed lemurs.

The larger mammals were the ones that seemed most out of place in their enclosures that were far too small.

Summed up best by this rhino. It is disappointing with all the open desert space (outside the city) that a new approach couldn’t be taken to provide wide open spaces for the animals, while still serving the educational and entertainment purposes of the zoo. Of course who has the money to make that happen?