Life in the Cheese Drawer

well, when you have a flight that leaves at 6:30 p.m., and you’ve been waking up at 6:30 a.m., that makes for a while before you get home!

nate, for some reason, wanted to head out RIGHT AWAY so i think we were on the road by 7:30. i asked if we could at least take the scenic route up to phoenix, so after about 30 miles on the freeway, we veered off and took a state highway.

scenes of note:

1. arizona grows a lot of cotton.
2. arizona also grows roses and other flowers for out-of-season regions like MN
3. arizona is not green
4. arizona has NO billboards. instead, you can just plant your placard or other such low sign in the median, boulevard, corner, etc. it’s kind of an eyesore, but maybe they think billboards are eyesores.

got to AZ and we took a moment to wait for the science center to open, so it was time for breakfast. i had a chorizo breakfast burrito and had another good food day! i was actually looking for some huevos rancheros, but a chorizo burrito is a good back up.

after that, nate and i headed to the science center, which was NOT what nate was hoping for. he was hoping for a science museum, and this was basically an indoor playground for kids to experience science.

alas.

so we got through that pretty quickly, then took a stroll through the heritage square where the center is located before returning the rental car and getting to the airport.

sigh.

we were four hours early for our flight. yikes! couldn’t even check in til 3 hours before. i read two books at the airport and on the flight.

and then we were back in MN around 11 a.m. ah, spacious traffic lanes! ah, our car which has a push button start! (using a key the entire time we were in AZ was a real drag.) (#firstworldproblems i know)

traffic up 94 was decent and when we got back, the cats were still alive.

thus wraps up another kate and nate vacay. today he said he wasn’t happy to be home :/

me, i’m always conflicted. i like vacation, but boy i like being at home too.

ah well. jiggity jig!

the last full day nate and i had in tucson, we headed over to the east saguaro national park. i did not know this, but there are two sections to saguaro! one is older and one has more cacti. we did our national duty: spent money in the gift shop and then took the loop around the park. we stopped at a couple pullouts and i took a tiny hike.

man, it seemed like getting around tucson was a drag. i had to look up the population, and it’s a half a million, so it shouldn’t seem so pokey (compared to the cities) but i realized that maybe it’s just more spread out and the roads we took were not freeways.

later that afternoon, after we spent two hours driving to get to and back from the national park 20 miles away, nate took a snooze while i went for a run. i headed to a loop trail about two miles away, and started out. it was sunny and about 60º, but i soon wondering if i was running in a “bad” part of town. not that it bothered me, but i did see a couple homeless camps (small, small). i was about a half mile in and my side started getting a stitch in it and i noticed my breathing was getting away from me a bit. later i looked it up, and tucson is about 1000′ higher than i’m used to. BUT i got four miles in in the outdoors and the sun!

this day was probably the best food day! we had brunch at saguaro corners, and it was delicious. a couple sonoran dogs, nate had a salad and i had a birria torta and calebitas, which is summer squash and pico carmelized and drizzled with oil. yum!

that evening we went to a place that had banh mi, the first time i’ve had that! also had a brown sugar milk tea.

then we cleaned out all our junk and started packing 🙁

you know, americans get a lot of grief for not leaving the country, not visiting other places around the world. but you know what? i think visiting different parts of america is pretty amazing, when you think about it.

traveling from avon, mn to tucson, az, is about 1600 miles. in that 1600 miles, you cover grasslands, mountains, woodlands, cities, empty spaces, ponderosas, saguaros, birch, deserts, native history, latino history, colonial history, spanish history. and if you head east, you get a completely different experience. if you head northwest, another completely different experience.

and that whole time? you speak a common language, use a common currency, and generally can find your way around without relearning how to drive. it’s EASY to have these different experiences while traveling in the US.

now, from london to moscow is 1800 miles. just another 200 miles more than nate and i traveled this trip. so, let’s say from MN to los angeles type of trip. in that 1800 miles, here’s the countries you would go through, each with their own language and likely localized languages within them:

• UK
• france
• belgium
• netherlands
• germany
• poland
• belarus
• russia

the euro is, of course, an easy currency, but you also have the pound in there and whatever they use in russia.

so, i don’t know why we americans get a hard time because we don’t travel internationally. is it because we don’t have a hard time of it? we aren’t immersed in a different language? we definitely can learn about different histories and cultures when we travel. because that’s kind of dumb. MN is hardly a hotspot for Latino historical sites. when people visit MN’s north shore, you learn about native americans’ history here and the french fur portagers. there is much different among us while also having much in common. plus, you have an easier time walking into museums and cultural places if they are in your native language, and you learn more.

so, my two cents. traveling in the US is just as valid as traveling across europe.

this morning i was sure that it was at LEAST 7:30 when I started to wake up, and when i looked at my clock, it was 6:40. ay yi yi! i hope this means that the trip home and fall back DST will be easy peasy.

nate, of course, had been awake since 4:30! talk about time zone trauma.

while i had coffee and debated going for a run in the 50º weather, nate took a nap. just as i was about to head out the door, he made some noise, so i held off on the run and we went to the university of arizona (go wildcats) to check out the art museums they had there. i was so super excited to check out the creative photography exhibit, but i was a little disappointed. i had read on the website they had ansel adams, but apparently you needed an appointment to view them? so weird. but it was something, and there was an andy warhol!

and this pretty cool polaroid piece.

after the disappointment, we headed over to the art museum to check out paintings, and that was at least a little more extensive than the photo exhibit. there was an original pollack and o’keefe, too!

this o’keefe is gorgeous.

but the winner of the exhibit was the woman-ochre, which had the WEIRDEST story. it was stolen from the UofA exhibit in the 80s – two people walked in, one of which distracted the person in charge and the other cut the painting from its setting, rolled it up, and got outta there. it’s assumed that they framed it and sold it to someone, and in 2017, someone found it at an estate sale! they did all this stuff to make sure it was in fact the real painting, and now it’s back to its home. so bizarre! there was a guard sitting in the room of this exhibit, which was all about the art heist and the piece of art, and it was hard not to crack a joke.

plus, i got in free because i happened to have my SCTCC ID with me LOL.

after the art, we went to check out architecture at the san xavier missionary, which i posit is about the only nice thing that happened with missionaries in the early americas.

it was a weird visit because there were people there to see the history, people there to see the architecture, and people there because they’re catholic and are praying. so you’re in there taking pics of the the building and there are people who are lighting candles and praying in the pews.

the church itself is actually pretty small, with solid wooden pews that are probably older than the cacti out front. this was a weird vibe, because it’s on native reservation land, so there was a gift shop that had native jewelry and clothing but also crosses and candles. the whole thing was just kind of depressing, so we headed out.

then….highlight of the day…i found a CHURRO TRUCK.

JUST CHURROS is right. i got a pack and some mexican caramel sauce. they were made right there in front of me and were delish. not as good as those churros i got in mexico, but definitely better than the taco bell churros. (not a surprise.)