Sabino Canyon was our destination today. Accordingly, Sabino Canyon is northeast of Tucson, we are camped southwest of Tucson and there are no limited access highways to cross town. As the crow flies, it is about 20 miles between Sabino Canyon and Justin’s Diamond J RV Park but, due to the tortured terrain and the unique nature of Tucson roads, it takes about an hour and a quarter to cross the gap.
The drive is worth it. Sabino Canyon is a federal site so our Geezer Pass got us in the parking lot for free, a $5 savings. We quickly popped over to a ticket booth and paid $10 a head for a trolley ride into the canyon. The trolley can be exited or re-boarded at any one of nine stops along the creek running down the bottom of this stunning desert chasm. The local rock formations are made out of gneiss, a particularly stripey sedimentary formation that looks very shiny after the water buffs it up some.
Today we were quite fortunate to see a large roadrunner with snazzy plumage right in the trolley boarding area. Even better, we got to see some coatis doing coati stuff near the creek bottom. They are interesting little critters that have a fuzzy tail with dense fur, long rear and short front legs and an overall appearance of a combination lemur/weasel/raccoon/cat. We were lucky again today as we heard long-time residents stating that they have been in Sabino Canyon zillions of times but today is their first coati sighting.
We used our new GPS to cross through central Tucson stopping off at a T. Joe’s to purchase chow items that are probably bad for us but very tasty. The city streets here have been laid out in such a fashion that motorists heading generally west are required to go east, south, north and make many turns before being allowed to drive home. It is very strange, to me.
We took some snaps of the wildlife and the terrain. Check ’em out! Click here