Bob and I began the Continental European portion of our house sitting adventures with a quick non-house-sitting tour through Portugal with stops in — Porto, famous for its port wines, Coimbra, famous for its university (and gorgeous library), Sintra, famous for its castles and palaces, and Lisbon, the capital. We head to Olhao, in southern Portugal tomorrow to connect with the home owner of our next house sit.
But first — how did we get here?
By car — Though we no longer own one. After throwing way too much money into it this summer just to have things keep breaking, we sold it to CarMax for more than we expected and feel like we have lost some undesired weight. We will see how we manage upon our return.
By air — We flew (for the first and likely last time) SATA (now Azores) Airlines from Boston to Porto via Lisbon. The flight from Boston to Lisbon was a short (compared to some of our other international flights) 6 hours, but the seats were tight, there was little legroom, and no pillows, blankets, or media were provided. The interior lights seemed to be off when they should have been on and vice versa. I didn’t sleep at all, and Bob slept very little. This was following a poor night’s sleep in our hostel in Boston due to street noise and sleeping in twin bunk beds with a room with no bathroom — fun journey down the hall during the night, especially from the top bunk! We did have an awesome day in Boston though. Great weather and a fun tour of Fenway, a stroll down the Charles River Esplanade, and then a great lunch at a Faneuil Hall restaurant overlooking the street performers.
Upper deck of Fenway — finding the seat where Ted Williams hit the longest inside-the-park home runWalking the Charles River EsplanadeAnother Big Head photo op for Bob
Everywhere in Portugal, we have enjoyed the super friendly people, the tiled architecture, the hills, and the beautiful summer weather. Check out some of the highlights (click on photos for captions) —
Porto
Scenes of Porto’s history done in traditional blue and white tile in train station
Tiled mosaic pattern on sidewalk
View of Porto waterfront from bridge crossing Duoro River
Graham’s Lodge House where we did our tour and tasting. They also own Warre’s and Dow’s.
Bob with his port flight following the tour.
CAnother view of the Porto Riverfront.
Coimbra
Coimbra University Library — rated one of the most beautiful in the world
View of Coimbra from university plaza
Elevator connecting upper and lower portions of Coimbra
Ceiling of university building
Organ in university chapel
Tiled wall in university building
Sintra —
Moorish Castle
Pena Palace
National Palace
Lisboa —
Lisbon elevator joking upper and lower sections of old town
View of Lisbon from one of many overlooks
Lisbons Arco da Rua Augusta — built to commemorate the city’s reconstruction after the 1755 earthquake
One of many beautiful tiled buildings in this country
I just checked, and our last blog was July 18. A blog a month seems a bit lazy, but I’d prefer to think of it as time spent living rather than writing. Anyhoo, we’re checking in now and hoping this finds you well and enjoying your August.
Bob and I have had an interesting month with some time apart, visits with family, and more southern AZ adventures.
During the last week in July, Bob flew to Des Moines to take a national cheese certification test as well as participate in all things cheese for a couple of days before heading to Plattesmouth, NE for a family reunion. Much thanks to his nephews for housing and transportation in Des Moines as well as transportation to and from Nebraska.
Bob’s family at his sister Shelli’s house
My (Beth’s) solo time was primarily consumed with dealing with car issues. I can’t tell you how much I am not a car fan. Where are the jet packs? Luckily, once the car was in the shop for the 2nd time in three days, I got a rental car to pick up my sister at the Tucson airport for some awesome girl time in AZ.
My sister and I on ski lift up to top of Mount LemmonView from ski liftPartial rattlesnake (woman had driven over it) slithering across sidewalk on my sister’s first am walk with me in our neighborhood.
Once reunited in early August, Bob and I headed out for some new adventures. One Sunday, we drove the two hours to Phoenix to watch a baseball game between 2 cellar-dwellers — the AZ Diamondbacks and the Milwaukee Brewers. The game was fun, and we enjoyed walking around the stadium (roof closed for coolness!) prior to the game.
Outside the Dback stadium (currently owned by Maricopa County but may be sold to a private company — not the team)Inside the stadium
With our homeowners’ permission and help from the neighbor in watching the dogs and house, we did an overnight trip to Tombstone and Bisbee. In Tombstone (which had a lot of foreign visitors filling up on Wild West Americana), we saw a staged performance of the shoot-out at the OK Corral (actually pretty fun) and then walked along the main drag to the old newspaper office of the Tombstone Epitaph (cuz every Tombstone needs an epitaph) for our copy of the newspaper edition of the shoot-out, and then saw a really hokey, multimedia diorama presentation on the history of Tombstone. The later was primarily taken over by crying babies and young children having to be taken out by parents.
Setting the stage for the shoot-outThe good guys (per the performance) — Wyatt Earp (middle), Doc Holliday (left), and Virgil Earp (or the other Earp brother). Doc was the narrator and carried the show.
We had visited Bisbee before and really wanted to return. We had a lovely walk around town following our arrival (We had just missed a hail storm.) and then a great dinner out that night. The highlight (for Beth anyway) was walking the course for the Bisbee 1000 Great Stair Climb race that is held every fall. We did this the following morning. The course takes you up (you always go up the stairs) 9 flight of stairs (most at least 100 steps) around town, as the city is built on a mountainside, which allows for great views of the town and surrounding area.
Sign near the 8th set of steps for the race.One of the sets of stepsView of the town from the top of the 6th set of steps
We have also done a common activity for southern Arizonans –going to Nogales, Mexico for dental care. We just had a teeth cleaning, but it was fun being in a border city again. Super easy to walk across in both directions — even with a wall. Nogales, AZ, is very hilly and much less desert-like in appearance than the border cities that we’ve been in Texas.
Border crossing buildingHelpful directions for pedestriansIn Mexico — A man dicing nopales (cacti) that he would sell in bags
We are loving summer in the desert! Much cooler here than in Austin with early ams being especially lovely for running and walking the dogs (around 76-78 degrees!). The summer also brings out the elusive cactus flowers that we are always trying to capture before they close up again. We haven’t had a lot of the monsoons that we were warned of (except for when my sister was here), although we have heard the thunder and seen the lightening of storms that have occurred around us.
We head out of Green Valley in a little over a week to start our European adventures which will include stops in Portugal, France, Belgium, and maybe Italy.
While we haven’t completely bonded with the intense heat (dry though it is), we are enjoying the mountain views and desert flora and fauna. Just thought we’d share a few of our most recent photos while we continue to wait for the promised monsoons.
In light of the recent US and world events, I have to start with the photo below. This feels like it’s become the half-staff year.
Bob and I had a great visit to the Saguaro National Park — western division this past week. Our visit started with a film in the lovely visitor’s center on the interdependence of the desert plants and animals on each other in order to survive. There seemed to be a message there for all of us . . .
We continue to be impressed with the size and longevity of the saguaro (pronounced Sa Wah Ro) cactus that grows so prominently in the Sonoran dessert.
Varied shapes and sizesIt almost looks like it wants to say something — like maybe can someone realign my top and bottom?!A peak inside the woody interior.
It’s amazing that these often giant plants begin as a seed the size of a pinhead and grow so slowly that they may be only 12 inches tall after 15 years! A 7 foot saguaro may be about 50 years old, and if it has sprouted “arms” it may be at least 75 years old. Saguaros that live 150 years or more may be over 50 feet tall and weigh more than 16,000 pounds!
Other plants that we finally learned the names for at the park are the Ocotillo, the Cholla cactus, and the Palo Verde tree which is identified by its green trunk.
The ocotillo is the spiky bush-type plant in the background.One variety of the Cholla.One view of the visitor’s center
We have seen some beautiful flowers as well here, but we have learned that we need to get a photo of them right away as the blooms don’t last very long. Here are two plants in bloom right in “our” yard.
There are definitely some agricultural areas around here as well. This weekend we went to Willcox, AZ to an orchard to pick peaches and then stopped into one of the handful of wineries near that town.
One variety of the peaches grown on the orchard — either Red Globe or New Haven.
Finally, we have had some interesting animal sightings. I saw my first bear on a hike late last week. Luckily, I saw it before it saw me, so I had time to figure out what to do since it was alongside the trail in the direction that I needed to go. I finally decided to move into its line of sight and move very slowly looking as big and as confident as possible. It decided I wasn’t that interesting, as it headed off. Of course, then, I wished I had gotten a photo. Still, glad to be alive to have that regret. Bob captured some other fun animals that we saw this week —
2 Javelinas out roaming one of the local golf courses!A serious looking spider that Bob spotted outside of the visitor center at the park
Neighborhood sightings include lots of birds and lizards, roadrunners, rabbits, Gambel Quail, and some fairly sizable coyotes. Also, and one long snake that I stepped over as I was walking one of the dogs before realizing what it was! Pretty exciting stuff for city dwellers!
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.
We saw a group of 3 of these large, big-eared rabbits. Very cool!
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.
Bob standing with man’s head made out of letters at last final street car stop.Bob with Easter Island type sculpture at local bar/restaurantOriginal pre-fab post office that was used in small town in Arizona. Tour guide told us it could also be used as a bank if sold with a Teller sign on it.Supposedly this is the original and replica of the first stamp ever (created in England). Fun stamp fact: (and you really wouldn’t believe how many there are) the UK does not put their name on their stamps — just the face or silhouette of the current monarch.Rattlesnake bridge in Tucson — cuz why not?View of Tucson from atop Sentinel PeakThe U of A’s A
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?)
View of top telescope as we started up mountainView of road up from topView of lower telescope from the topMe at the top and hoping to make it safely back down
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.
Bob and I started with a climb of Youngblood Hill for a view of the town. These dogs watched us from a house at the start of the climb. Look at the size of the black and white dog!Shrine at the top of the climb.View of town from top of hillCool court house building — definitely not the typical construction style for the town thoughCute local business and 1 of 9 sets of steps that form part of the only outdoor stair climb race in the US. It’s run in Oct and is 4.5 miles. We’re doing it (though maybe walking) when we go back.Bob standing next to statue and plaque commemorating the “virile” men who worked in the coal mines. I’ll leave the rest to you as to where you want to go with that.
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.
Some fun AZ facts posted in the student shop on the U of A campus.One of several wildcat statues on campus. While the wildcat is their mascot, their official motto is “bear down” supposedly a message from John Salmon, a fatally injured popular U of A athlete, to his coach before he died.Wildcats football stadiumOne of the many pieces of artwork around campus. Really interesting university with even a department dedicated to tree ring research.If you are at all interested in space or flight, the Pima Air and Space Museum is pretty impressive. This is a photo of just a sliver of the over 4,000 planes that Bob saw in the Boneyard tour of the facility. Planes are retired here to await further service or to be used for their parts.While Bob was at the Boneyards tour, I checked out the impressive section on Women in Flight and also watched a video of a paper airplane project that they created to get kids more interested in flight. It was actually a 45′ cardboard plane that was pulled up by a helicopter to get flight and ended up flying as fast as 98 mph before crashing.We both had to check out the retired Air Force One planes.
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.
At Windy Point on way up to Mount Lemmon.Selfie at Windy PointOne of the great rock formations on the way up.Looking down on part of the drive up the mountain.
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.
Building complex that houses the Visitor’s Center where we loaded up on city info and began our walk.Storefront of Visitor’s CenterThe Temple of Music and Art built in 1927 was renovated in 1990 and is a working theater known for its great acoustics. Lovely courtyard with fountain as well.The Ronstadt Transportation Center — not officially on the tour but the name got our attention.Lovely Pima County Courthouse — great gardens and a courtyard between buildings where the line for the original town boundary wall use to be located.Inside the Hotel Congress near the registration desk.
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.
Roadside exit off of Hwy 19 heading into the little community of Arivica. The longhorn skeleton is even more impressive in the rear view mirror as you drive away from it.One of the boardwalks at the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge — a 117,000+ Acre refuge area for the protection of wildlife.Patagonia Lake at Patagonia Lake State Park. We were sure there wouldn’t be any water since all the rivers/creeks/washes up this way are dry , so this was a treat and many families were enjoying the beach area.Boat on Patagonia Lake near where we started our Creek Hike. The hike was well shaded and brought us close to — cows and turkeys.We walked the whole park to check out campsites, the general store, and this fun, steep bridge over the boat docking area.After the state park, we drove to Elgin (not Texas — or Illinois!) to the southern AZ wine region to partake of a tasting and a glass of white at Kief-Joshua Vineyards.Closer to Green Valley, we hiked the 4 mi (each way) Anzac trail from the Tubac Presidio State Historic Park to Tumacacori State Park. It was, happily, much more shaded than we were expecting!The mission at Tumacacori.You can buy any kind of yard art in Tubac.How about this yard art?
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!
View 1 of the coast as we began our walk around the head.View 2 — house with great view in the foregroundView of old lighthouseView of new lighthouseView of harbor
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.
Bob with his nephew Zack and brother-in-law Jody in IowaPart of the Gray County Wind Farm, one of many that we saw across Iowa and Kansas
The Very Large Array, a set of 28 radio dishes providing collective observations of deep space that are used by researchers throughout the world. Located on the Plains of St Agustin, about 45 miles from Soccorro, New MexicoSome of the dishes as seen from the roadA close-up of one of the dishesFun fence in the historical district of Truth or Consequences, NMOne of the many hotel and hot spas in T or C, NMCanal and River in T or CLooking back at T or C from hill hike
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.
Cafe on the ferrySitting area
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:
Bell Tower at Trinity University — one bell rings at 6:10 to call everyone to 6:15 dinner. The 2nd bell only rings at exam time or for funerals on campus.The line to see the Book of Kells (illustrated book of New Testament). That and the library were our reason for visiting Trinity.The gorgeous library. We saw the Book of Kells and library after a great tour of the campus provided by a PhD sociology student.Bob before a Guinness.Bob after a few.Jameson Whisky showroom. It’s no longer made in Dublin. We didn’t do the tour, but I can’t say we didn’t sample any of their whiskey while in Dublin.Teeling Distillery — only distillery currently making whiskey in Dublin.Inside the distillery — awesome tour! Prior to the world wars and America’s prohibition, Dublin accounted for 60% of world’s whiskyJames Joyce Memorial. Visited the Writer’s Museum which covered — Joyce, Oscar Wilde, Yeats, etc., even Frank McCourt.Hanging with Oscar Wilde. We’re both facing his old room at Trinity U.One of the bridges over the River Liffey which runs through Dublin.Another view of the River LiffeyView of a cricket game in Phoenix Park, one of the largest urban parks in Europe and twice the size of Central Park in New York.Selfie in front of the Irish President’s house that is located within Phoenix Park. The original part of the structure served as the Park Manager’s house which was apparently a prestigious position. We had a great (and free!) tour of the building.Cross erected for Papal visit during the 70s. It is located in Phoenix Park near the US Ambassador’s estate (also in the park).Memorial cemetary for the leaders of the 1916 Irish rebellion against England. The memorial is on the grounds of a prison where some were kept before being executed for their role in the uprising.Remembrance statue and fountain for 1916 rebellion which ultimately led to Ireland’s statehood.Book display in the Temple Bar area of Dublin.Public art
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.
Peckish Travels 