Author: bbpeck

When we aren’t playing with our new favorite M & Ms (“our dogs” — Molly and Maya), we have been doing some desert and mountain hikes to get up close and personal with the area.

Molly just chillin

Maya couch surfin

We did two hikes recently in the eastern portion of the Saguaro National Park and a mountain hike on Mount Lemmon.  Both areas are near Tucson.  We paid $10 to go into the Saguaro National Park for our first hike.  However, the fee was good for a week, so we had to go back for a second hike.  The hike on Mount Lemmon is part of the Coronado National Forest, and there was no fee to hike there.

The following are some snaps from our hike on the Douglas Springs Trail in the Saguaro National Park.  This was a great hike through a cactus “forest” to a waterless springs which made for a good picnic break.

A few days later we hit the Deer Valley Loop trail in the same park.  This ended up being a bit of a sandy hike as the trails had us walking through dry washes.

Yesterday we hiked the Butterfly Trail on Mount Lemmon.  We did not see any butterflies, but along with the great mountain views and pine trees we did see a wild turkey and a big, black snake (not photographed, just happy not to have stepped on it!), and a large fungus.

So, there is volunteering and there is “volunteering.”  Beth has been volunteering one day a week at the local library.  This makes Beth a happy book nerd.  Last week, Bob and I “volunteered” at a Tucson distillery to help them bottle and package their smoky whisky.  Unlike in Scotland where they use peat to create the smokiness in their whiskies, this company uses mesquite.  They also make an unsmoked variety.  Bob and I were part of a five person crew that worked the afternoon shift 11-3).  For our help, we received a free lunch and a 750 ml bottle each of one of their whiskies.  The owner and staff were really nice, and we learned a bit more about Tucsan and the bottling process — just ask us about those shrink-wrapped necks the next time you see us.

Bob and I had our first minor “crisis” of our house sit tour last week when the AC decided it had had enough of the super hot conditions and decided to retire prematurely.  It apparently wasn’t alone, as it took a few calls to find someone that could come out the next day to see what the issue was.  It took the better part of the day to get the issue resolved, but all is well and we’re as “cool” as ever — no worries there.

In other news, we have been watching the AZ Wildcats advance in Omaha, and have confirmed house sit commitments through the beginning of November.  Following our time here, we will fly to Portugal in early September for a 3 week house sit in Olhao, Portugal (southern part of country — near Faro), then we will head to France for a 2 week house sit in Souillac (near Toulouse) and then to Belgium for a 10 day sit in Boitsfort (suburb of Brussels).  Woo Hoo!

Also, we have been seeing some more of the southern Arizona area. . .

We did another urban adventure in Tucson, this time we took the short ride on their street car (for $4 you can ride it all day, but it basically goes from the mercado area just west of the city center, through the 4th street district downtown, and the university) as well as walked.  We found some more big head photo ops for Bob, got a personal tour of the postal museum, and then drove up Sentinel Peak (“A” Mountain) to get a great view of the town as well as the UofA “A” that gets painted white each year by the students.

We suffered through one of the worst tours ever to get to the Whipple Observatory atop one of the mountains outside of Green Valley.  The tour started at 9 am with a couple of films and ended a little before 3 after mostly a slow slog up (and then back down) the mountain by bus.  The road was narrow, windy, and sometimes paved and sometimes not.  We stopped at a couple of different types of telescopes which I still don’t know too much about.  We had a picnic lunch (which we each brought) at our 2nd stop before we were hauled in smaller groups by SUV to the top telescope.  The views at the top were great as well as the views on the way up and down (if you could deal with looking out).  Note to tour guides:  formally introduce yourself, the name and importance of the facility being toured, and what will happen during the tour.  Have fun facts to highlight on bus ride and try to talk to the whole tour group when off of the bus.  (Maybe I’ve found my next career?)

Our find of the stay so far though has to be the cute town of Bisbee.  It is about a 2 hour drive southeast of here.  It is located about a mile up in the Mule Mountains, but you drive down into it and their are steps all over town to help you get from one level to the other.  It definitely has an Austiny ” keep it weird” vibe.  We plan to go back.

Well in terms of northern, everything is relative right?  But, when Bob and I aren’t headed south on Hwy 19 towards Nogales, we’re headed north to Tucson.  Tucson is an easy 30 min plus drive from Green Valley.  Tucson is the county seat of Pima County in which Green Valley is also located.  The city has a population of approximately 530,000 with the metro area being a little over 1 million.  However, it feels smaller as there are very few tall buildings and the linear street layout makes it pretty easy to negotiate.

To date, we have explored the U of A campus (we’re rooting for the Wildcats in the College World Series), walked the turquoise trail around town to see many buildings of historical importance, the impressive Pima Air and Space Museum, drove up lovely Mt. Lemmon to escape into cooler climbs, and returned to Westin Las Paloma’s Spa and Resort where we had stayed years ago after Bob completed a conference there for work.

Mount Lemmon is a mountain just north of Tucson.  The drive up is part of the Sky Island Scenic byway.  We drove to the top of the ski lift to enjoy great views and MUCH cooler temps.

Bob and I had a hot 2 hour walk around downtown Tucson following the Turquoise Trail to see many of its historic buildings.  The walk provided us with a much better feel for the city.  We were most impressed with the courthouse, many lovely restaurants along Congress and Broadway, as well as a couple of markets and a fun Hotel Congress.

We are having a record-breaking June here in Arizona.  It’s not just the fires that are hot.  We are to get to 115 or 116 tomorrow (120 or so in Phoenix) which hasn’t happened here in 20+ years.  Bob is taking all of the credit.

Regardless of temps, however, we are continuing to explore this little corner of the world.  Generally, when we travel here we hop onto Highway 19 — either south towards Nogales or north towards Tucson.  This post covers our southern explorations to date.  (Side note and rare fun transportation fact:  Highway 19 was built when the US was considering adopting the metric system so travel distances listed on road signs are listed in kilometers and not miles.  This is what you get for being proactive.)

Anyhoo, I’m not sure the rest of this post will top that fun fact, but here goes. . .  We have not yet ventured south all the way to Nogales, but we have checked out some natural wildlife areas, state parks, and cute wine and art areas south of Green Valley.  Going south always means that we will hit a border check stop on the way back.  A couple of the places that we have visited sound like we have made it as far south as Argentina.

We arrived in Green Valley, AZ, on Memorial Day and were greeted warmly by the home owners and their two dogs — Molly and Maya.  We have been even more warmly welcomed by Mother Nature, as a day or two after our arrival it hit triple digits for the first time this year and is projected to be 111 or 112 for the next few days.  We are some serious hot tamales!

See Molly and Maya below.

Molly peeking over the end table.

Maya relaxing of top of the sofa.

Our hosts have made it very easy for us here for our three-month stay.  In addition to their lovely home and yard, we have use of their bikes (which we are using!) and access to their recreation centers.  They also left us with a wealth of travel information, coupons for local restaurants and cafes, and introduced us to some of the neighbors.  We have subscribed to a local paper and obtained library cards for the public library system.  We are starting to feel like locals — especially as we are waking up early with the sun and to get a run in and walk the dogs before the heat of the day kicks in.

We have also begun to explore the local area — by foot, car, and bike.  It’s an interesting location with a strong Native American, Mexican, military, and mining history as well as some lovely natural areas and wine regions.

Mission San Xavier del Bac. This was built by Franciscan monks when this part of AZ was part of Mexico.

Inside the chapel

Hiking the Old Baldy Loop at Madera Canyon

Scenes from a bike trip to a bike trail around a new community and fishing lake in the nearby town of Sahuarita.  Many of the roads here have a biking lane, so it’s a fairly bike friendly area.  You just need to be okay about biking in an oven!

As mentioned in our last blog, Bob and I took the train from Dublin to the small fishing community of Howth for a lovely day trip before leaving Ireland.   While in Howth, we spent most of our time hiking the Bog of Frogs trail around the coast and interior and then walking the promenade along Dublin Bay.  Lovely!

We landed in the US last Wednesday for a quick overnight stay in Dallas before flying to Des Moines on Thursday.  We had a fun day with Bob’s sister Cheryl’s family who have been taking great care of our car, mail, and what remains of our personal goods.  They were awesome about letting us do laundry, repack, etc. before we headed out Friday to begin our journey to Tucson via Iowa, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and New Mexico.  The following photos prove that we aren’t in the UK anymore.

We have officially begun our Tucson (really Green Valley) house sit.  More on that later.

Prior to our visit to Dublin, where we’ve been for the past six days, and after Beth’s visit to Stratford, we had two last days in Moreton-in-Marsh to play with Daisy, peruse the local market, and have a good meal out at an Indian restaurant.

After saying goodby to Daisy last Wednesday evening, we caught a train to Birmingham for a quick overnight stay before catching an early train the following day to Holyhead, Wales, where we caught a ferry to Dublin. We have really enjoyed the train system in the UK. Much easier than flying and dealing with security and other logistics.

The ferry was awesome too — large with a theatre, cafe, restaurant, shop, quiet zones, and cabins. The seas were smooth which made for an easy 3 1/2 hour trip. We would have enjoyed it more but upon waking up in Birmingham at 4:30am to catch the train, we found we had an email from our Airbnb host cancelling our 6 night stay in Dublin that was to begin that night! That made our rail/sail travel a stressful search for accommodations using slow WiFi. About 2 hours into the ferry ride (since the wifi on the train was useless), we finally found something (not Airbnb) in our price range and everything turned out OK, so we were able to enjoy the rest of the ferry ride.

There is so much to see and do in Dublin.  We saw a lot of great parks, continued our tours of colleges/libraries, learned about Irish writers and some Irish history, and sampled some Irish beer and whiskey.  See photos below:

Yesterday we did a day trip out to Howth, a small fishing village just north of Dublin.  Will do a separate photo blog on that.  Now we are getting ready for our return flight to the USA after spending 3 months out of the country. Our next house sit begins on May 30 south of Tucson in Green Valley. We will be there 3 months watching a house and two dogs while the owners test out living in Panama.

We are slow with our blogs as per usual.  This one is a farewell to England, as we are now in Ireland and actually close to heading back to the States.  Last Monday, I did a solo trip to Stratford-Upon-Avon, as the bus from Moreton didn’t run frequently enough to allow both of us to be away from Daisy for that amount of time.  Bob was good enough to let me go get my Shakespeare fix, as we continue our accidental, but lovely, writer’s tour of the U.K.

As Stratford is nothing if not touristy and pricey, I chose to do my own walking photo tour of the attractions I was interested in rather than paying to get inside.  (I also took exception to the requirement to pay to enter at least three of the Shakespeare-related homes of their choosing, 2 of which I wasn’t that interested in.). Anyhoo, that being said, I had a lovely tour of a lovely town, on a beautiful day.  I soaked in as much Shakespeare (and the river Avon — though not literally) as I could get on my two feet.

We had quite the dramatic start to our Dublin visit — but more on that later.

We are well into our Cotswolds house sit and are caring for, and being entertained by, the adorable Pug, Daisy.  She loves her walks/runs, her naps on top of, or beside us, and gives us high fives for a treat.  She also has an impressive vocal (gruntal?) repertoire.  We are charmed.

We have been trying to see a bit of the area as well with hikes to nearby communities, a train trip to Oxford, and a bus ride to Chipping Camden.  The countryside is beautiful — rolling hills and valleys, and is currently awash in the beautiful yellow of the mustard plant.  The gardens here are beautiful, as they have been everywhere in the UK.

The first hike we did from our current residence was a country hike through fields and pastures, as well as along country roads, to the community of Lower Lemington and then on to Aston Magna before heading back to Moreton-in-Marsh.  We got to see a bit of the surroundings, visit an old church, annoy some sheep, and get very, very wet.  It was a consistent rain that day and the path was already wet from prior rains, so we were pretty happy to get back to the house.

After a day in, we took a quick, 30 minute train trip to Oxford to check out the university (and be able to say that we have “gone to Oxford”).  We did a tour of the university’s Bodlean Library and caught a free exhibition on how death is portrayed in Shakespeare’s writings at the new Weston library.  As with the Library of Congress in the US, the Bodlean receives a copy of all published materials every year.  The Weston Library building used to house this massive collection, but it has since been moved to a storage facility in Swindon.  The former collections building was gutted to create a functioning library for students and researchers along with a cafe and gift shop.  The Bodlean library is impressive and dates back to the 1600s when Thomas Bodley provided the funding to create the library from what had been built as a theological school for the university and also served as a “court of appeals” to resolve issues between the town and university.

We took a bus ride to the Cotswold community of Chipping Camden to hike up Dover Hill and have our first English tea at a local tea room.  We also had time to peruse the high street area shops before catching the bus back to Moreton-in-Marsh.

We have also hiked to other nearby communities including a lovely walk to Blockely which provided a lovely view walking in as you enter from atop a hill and walk down into the village.  On that day, we returned through Bourton-on-the-Hill before coming back into town where we stumbled upon a craft market underway at the hall in the Town Center.

Today we did a quick hike to Longmouth.  On the way back we saw a duck less duckery and a large oriental style mansion, called Sezincote, that is open to the public on special occasions.

While it is early in the season, this area seems already to be hopping with tourists.

After leaving Windermere and the Lakes District, we hopped on a train to check out Cardiff, Wales before our next house sit in Moreton-in-Marsh, England. We had some quick train changes in a couple of locations, but we lucked out and made all of our connections. In Cardiff, we stayed at a newer hotel close to the station and the Millenium Stadium.

For our first 1/2 day outing, we set out for the visitor info center near Cardiff Bay. Cardiff Bay is a gorgeous area where we saw some lovely buildings — the Millennium Building (in which the visitor centered was housed), The National Assembly Building, Roald Dahl Plass (Roald Dahl was born in Wales and baptized in the Norwegian Church which is now also located along the bay.), the Pierhead Building, a merry-go-round, and lots of retail and restaurants. After picking up area info, we took a 45 minute cruise around the harbor to give an initial overview of the area. We made our way back to the city center and began to see why Wales is known as the city of arcades (covered area between buildings with shops) as we passed at least 4 or 5 of them in our little walkabout.

We began our first full day in Cardiff walking a few blocks to a castle. Cuz it’s Great Britain, and you can stumble over one of these almost everywhere. We didn’t join the bus loads going in, as it was a bit pricey, but we did explore the very large Bute Park that abuts the castle and runs alongside the River Tath for a number of miles. To enter the park, we walked along the wall of animals that surrounds the castle — a series of different animal sculptures that sit atop the stone wall guarding the castle. After walking much of the park and watching the other pedestrians and cyclists using the park as well as the ferry boats cruising the lake, we walked over to Town Hall to see the building and nearby park. We also got to see a couple of newlyweds coming out of the building! We stumbled on a couple of markets in the city center — a lovely Mediterranean one (food only) that was outside and occurs just on Saturday and an indoor market that sells produce, take away food, and home goods that is open everyday. At night, we caught a bit of the Leicester soccer game that was the official end of the season, although they had already won the championship based on points.

Our second (and final) full day in Cardiff was the best-weather day yet. I believe it reached a high of 79 F. We had reserved bikes the prior day and picked those up about 9:30 for a full-day rental. While the bikes were of borderline quality, they managed to get us around. We biked out of the city to see two more castles — Castle Coch (long slog uphill for the photo op) just outside of Cardiff and Caerphilly Castle in the community of Caerphilly which we paid to explore. The best part of our journey was that the out leg was primarily uphill (though it didn’t really feel like it), so the return leg was downhill — almost all the way back to Cardiff! We wanted to continue our adventure, so we followed the bike paths back to Cardiff Bay to further explore the area. Everyone had the same idea, as it was so nice out, so we got lots of people watching in as well. Awesome, awesome day!

The next day we caught a crack of dawn train (5:12am!) to head to Moreton-in-Marsh for our current house sit. We had a lovely transition with our host couple and met their Pug, Daisy, before they headed to London to fly to Japan. More on the house sit and the Cotswolds in the next blog.