Arizona Travel Guide
Tucson
Another Snowbird destination but not quite as soulless as its larger compadre. The climate is very attractive with an average 350 days of sunshine per year, but the drive towards the tourist dollar has not come at the cost of completely surrendering its historic heritage. The centre of the city is pleasant enough, there are good restaurants and the student influence from the University of Arizona ensures a lively nightlife.
Only 60 miles from Mexico, Tucson has a rich seam of Hispanic life coursing through it. In the past, it was an outpost of the Spanish and Mexican 'empires'. Relics from these days are on view within El Presidio an area of traditional adobe housing, bars, galleries and restaurants. Also worth a visit for a further insight into frontier life is the restored Sosa-Carillo-Fremont House a large house dating from the 1850's. The other attraction in the city is the on-campus Arizona State Museum. Highlights here include a section that charts the evolution of the numerous Native American tribes in the area.
Tucson is clearly the best of a bad bunch when it comes to the cities of the South West however it has not been immune to the urban sprawl that afflicts this fast growing state. The best reason for visiting Tucson is as a base for checking out the natural beauty and other curiosities in the neighbouring region.
Tombstone
A Wild West theme park that still retains a flavour of its brief hey day in the 1880's. Essentially a silver mining boomtown the reputation of Tombstone rests with a solitary, brief event, The Gunfight at the OK Corral. The showdown between the Earp brothers, Wyatt, Morgan and Virgil, the TB riddled Doc Halliday and the cattle rustling (allegedly) Clanton family is familiar to anyone who has ever sat in a cinema. It is the quintessential gunfighter moment and it's a true(ish) story. Sadly, to keep the town trading on its flimsy credentials, there are daily enactments of hold ups, robberies and shootouts. A bit tacky but despite that, this place is a must for any fan of the Old West. 'I'll be your Huckleberry' (cough, cough).
Saguaro National Park
Split into two halves straddling Tucson, this park is dedicated to the preservation of the Saguaro cactus. This spiky desert dweller is as much a symbol of the Old West as John Wayne, the Colt 45 or Tequila. There are comprehensive trails running through the park for horses, bikes and those on foot. Beware though; the Sonora Desert is dangerously hot in the summer, which limits the amount of time that can safely be spent observing these weird, arm-waving cacti.
Biosphere 2
Take a guided tour around this curiosity for a glimpse into a Sci-Fi future. Situated a short drive south of Tucson, Biosphere 2 is an experiment. Sealed beneath a Plexiglas shell are 5 biomes (visitors to the Eden Project in the UK will be familiar with such terminology) these each contain an ecosystem. All this is designed to be a miniature planet earth (Biosphere 1).
As an experiment, success has been mixed. OK so the first 8 inhabitants, sealed up like supermarket Olives in 1991, lived to tell the tale but the biomes were unusable for the second lot of inhabitants who followed two years later. This second experiment was aborted when two of the first denizens of the dome who had been sacked returned and broke the seals.
To summarise; the people all fell out, the air became contaminated when the protective layer was compromised, the ocean section could not be kept clean and they had to decimate the rainforest zone to plant food to keep themselves going. Surely, this is a total success; it is,after all, just like Biosphere 1.
Part of the original aim was to pave the way for intergalactic colonisation. Perhaps we aren't quite ready yet?
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