Tucson, Arizona

We drove from Benson to Tucson for the day on Thursday, to get the U-joints replaced on the truck.  We spent the day poking around the area where Arizona's Number 1 Dodge dealership is located, apparently on the not-so-classy side of town.

We stopped in for breakfast at Denny's, which, like everything else down here, tasted much better and was much cheaper than back home.  Our waitress was a Louisiana native, and was bubbling over with excitement because she had taken her kids to see President Obama when he visited the Tucson shooting site the day before.  This was at the Safeway where the Congresswoman to the area we are currently staying in was shot in the head, and about 17 others were also shot, several of them dying.  It's about 30 minutes from where we are staying in Benson.

We dropped into a local pawn shop that had a sign on the door, "No loaded firearms allowed," and had a nice display case full of AK-47s, different types of handguns from Glocks to Ruegers, interspersed with a smattering of used jewelry and knives (see my Random Observations page for more tidbits on gun control, or lack of it, in this state).

The smog is very noticeable as you move towards Tucson.  In fact, when we were coming east from Buckeye, there was a thick layer of smog about 50 miles west of Phoenix, which continued on down into Tucson and cleared up just before Benson, so about 3 hours of smog-filled driving.

I bought some oranges off a vendador stationed in front of Mercad Y Carniceria El Herradero.  He was an older gentleman,  and we spoke in Spanish.  It was nice to see that I can still hold a conversation and haven't forgotten how to count in that language!  As we walked up the sidewalk, a man trundled by with a small hand-cart in tow with some kind of pail on it.  I didn't realize until we'd passed him that he had uttered "tamales" in a low voice as he went by.  This reminded me of the first time I tasted a tamale, when I purchased one from an old woman with a similar pail on a street corner in Puerto Vallarta many years ago.  I almost turned back to buy one from him, then remembered I had spent all my cash on some vanilla, and churros and pan dulce at Guerrero's (pastries, of course!)

Right  near the Dodge dealership was yet another U.S. Airforce base, so we were entertained with big Hercules aircraft landing throughout the day, as well as some F-35 fighter jets in an afternoon soirtee.  The military presence down here is extremely noticeable, especially in the air.