A trip into the Desert Southwest

We spent a week wandering the desert.  As in the south western corner of America.  In the early part of summer.  A trip to the states of Arizona and Texas.  Primarily to transport the offspring on some educational activity in the form of camps organized at two different universities.

This is what American high school is all about now.  Kids that want to explore opportunity need to start earlier and earlier.  Soon a newborn will be given an embedded chip and they will start tracking its overall growth remotely so a college can send messages to their brain as they learn to slurp Cheerios.

Anyway outside of the inevitable let me pen a few observations and post some pics.

First stop was Tucson in the state of Arizona.  Tucson is a satellite city to the larger capital city of Phoenix about 100 miles to the north.  So we flew into PHX and drove south.  It is over an hour by road - you follow the interstate which technically is the I -10 (in America highways that run east west are even numbers) that parallels a train track.  What Trade Tariff?  You can enjoy the passing of colorful containers amidst the otherwise drab countryside and an occasional hillock.

Pikachu Hill

Regular goods traffic to all points east from the coast

Tucsonites we found are resigned to almost half a year of heat.  The forecast is very hot and very very hot.  No rain.  Use air conditioning. It also conditions the people.  They are slower in almost every aspect than the Californians we run into daily.  But it gives them a different warmth.  No pun.  People speak to strangers at restaurants.  They do not mind crowding in a line to get good food. 

We ate Mexican (inspired) food a lot. 

There a lot of folks from the neighbor to the south that have made America home and brought their grandmas cooking style to feed its new neighbors.  We benefited from their hospitality including one that a Mr. Clinton seemed to have enjoyed few years when he was the leader of the 'free' world...LOL

Tucson also has been slowly restoring some of its ancient native Indian and Mexican heritage in the form of adobe structures as well as old cathedrals from few hundred years ago.  One such large building is south of Tucson on native American land and happens to be the largest cathedral in Arizona.  Cathedral of San Xavier del bac (del bac signifies land where water exists).

Back in town I was impressed by the Tucsonites ability to conduct commerce without having to step out of their air conditioned transportation - for essentials like beer and tobacco.