never a sunset in tucson

For funding's sake, I made the last of one of my knee-jerk weekend trips: Tucson, Arizona to visit Christoph for a sporadic adventure, or as I like to call it: a stint of sporadicism.



Being only the third time hanging out with my buddy, he endeavored to show me the Best of Tucson in less than a long weekend. I think the only thing we did not accomplish was catching sight of Tucson's jaw-dropping sunsets.

Though we didn't catch a harlequin sky, we did spend a great portion of our time under cerulean blue. I had only seen a few cactus in my life, so it was exciting to hike amongst thousands of them. I saw them as little alien creatures (possibly named Flert?) scattered and turned to Martian stone. Christoph made it a point to take photographs of cacti that resembled real human scenes, in order to turn into postcards one day. Here are some that caught my eye, and what they were to me.

A Night at the Roxbury:


Cacti ThumbWar!


A person in reverence of the beauty of Tucson:


Family Photo:


Single Mother:


Young boy on father's shoulders at the crowded circus . . .


. . . looking at this mime-clown:


Man fears falling tree:


Freakishly tall man waves hello to odd bush:



Okay, the rest are for our new Postcard company that will pay off all my bills and allow me to live a life free of job obligations.
(I say 'our' because I am undeniably latching myself onto the idea because I was around during conception of its first photos)


Okay, some other photos for fun. . .

Nubbins -


Cactus Skeleton


On our hike through the Saguaro National Park, Christoph mentioned a cactus that springs out at you, like a porcupine quill or something... We then saw it and asked a passing hiker what it was called: the Jumping Cholla. Cool. It is also called a Teddy Bear Cholla, which is ironic, because the last thing I'd want to do is hug this barbed tree-thing. Bighorn Sheep eat the juicy fruit off of these guys - much respect to the bighorns.


Me preening what I think to be a Cylindropuntia versicolor. I love cacti and succulents. I wish I knew all about them -


This was us at the top. I'm pretty sure xtoph has a weggie from the 3 mile, 1,700 foot elevation gain. It must have been that sudden burst of quickened pace when we followed the old guy with calves at the end.


Tucson is beautiful.


I came home to tell all about my trip: my first time going to Mexico (albeit Nogales, which isn't really considered Mexico?), my first taste of the Prickly Pear fruit and my first time seeing tons of cactus. One friend was upset that I forgot our shared experience of first cactus sighting a few years ago. Here's homage (proof) to that moment:


We covered a lot of bases from tamales in Mexico to Patagonia to wine tasting to museum perusing to cave exploration/spelunking to hiking to bar hopping, game playing... however, it is in my blood to plan way too much for much too little time, so we didn't quite finished the decathlon. Final score Christoph: 3, meghann: 2. My only complaint of the trip was his refusal to play games I would beat him at, i.e. ms pacman, super mariokart, rummy and/or a typing contest... but not everything has to be a competition - so I let it slide.

Cheers Tucson and the wonderful residents of it.