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 🙁