our current campground in benson is only about a half hour away from the iconic, old western town of tombstone, arizona. we figured it was worth a trip, so off we went…. our first stop was to watch a gunfight reenactment, complete with historical details. here we are, the full posse, waiting for the show […]
hazel
tumacácori national historical park.
on thursday, the kids and i loaded up and headed off to check out tumacácori national historical park. (pronounced too-mah-KAH-kohr-ee, we would learn). basically, it’s the ruins of an old spanish mission, a few miles north of the mexican border, and it was chock full of information about the history of when catholic european explorers […]
chiricahua national monument
our campsite in benson is an hour or so from four different national monuments/historic sites. since derek was off for martin luther king jr day, we decided to hit up chiricahua national monument to do a bit of hiking and exploring. the place was pretty amazing. a hidden gem of arizona. we took a short […]
saguaro national park
since arriving in the sonoran desert, we have been enamored with the giant saguaro cactus and couldn’t wait to visit the national park dedicated to the iconic giant. our spot in tucson was only about 30 minutes away from the west side of the park, so we were able to visit twice in our four […]
tucson (museum) time.
after we left mesa, we moved on down the road a bit to tucson, where we stayed in the driveway of a boondockers welcome member (in the middle of the desert) for a few days. there was so much to do in tucson, it was hard to narrow it down, but in the end, we […]
mesa miscellany. (plus some yuma).
when we parted ways with the grandlidboms, they headed back to nc, and we made our way to arizona. our first stop was in yuma, just across the border. we had a quick little stay in the front yard of a random strangers house, who we found via boondockerswelcome.com. (basically, it’s a subscription service that […]
phoenix zoo.tiger do over.
if you actually read my blog posts, you may remember that i mentioned that, on our san diego zoo adventure, anna was bummed that we never made it to the tiger exhibit. so, we promised to take her to the next zoo that had tigers that we came across in our travels. well, she didn’t […]
casa grande and tonto national monuments.
during our time in mesa, we were able to hit up two different national monuments, both about an hour or so away, and both dedicated to preserving the history of native people who inhabited the area long before we did. first up, casa grande. the big house. the kids insisted on doing as much of […]
desert botanical garden.(spoiler: it’s mostly cactuses).
for our first grand adventure in the state of arizona, we chose the desert botanical garden in phoenix. the lidkids actually voted for it, out of all the options presented to them. we definitely like cactuses in this family. on the stroll in, i took this shot, to showcase our first usage of the trio […]
grandlidbom san diego christmas. last day.
for the last (full) day of the grandlidbom san diego christmas extravaganza, the world famous san diego zoo was on tap. before we even entered the gates, we happened upon our first “animal”… there were hundreds of bees buzzing around a (rather peculiar) plant. i don’t know if this pic is from my phone or […]