Super 8 Motel Tucson/East/D.M.A.F. Area

One of the wonders of modern air travel is that you can arrive at your destination before you leave your point of departure. Of course, it only happens flying from west to east across the International Dateline. Whatever day it is, we arrived home, travel weary and happy to be in Tucson with lots of lovely New Zealand memories.

We spent so much time exploring the outdoors in Tucson that it wasn't until our last week that we finally explored downtown. We did this after our drive up to Mt. Lemmon, so it wasn't a long exploration. But I wanted to share some of the sights of both old and new Tucson that we found.

A final thought on our Tucson trip. We needed a pl...

We departed at 6.00am! 2 cars - in my car - Paul and Andrew, with Paul as co-driver. In the other car - Adam, Sherry, Judith and Hayley. Both identical cars, mine is red, theirs in silver. Toyota Camry's.

Our first stop on the roadtrip is Saguaro national park - with the huge typical cacti that you imagine in America, pretty cool. We d...

Tucson has a wonderful juxtaposition of desert and mountain terrain. Although situated in the Sonoran Desert, Tucson is almost completely surrounded by four mountain ranges: the Santa Catalinas to the north, the Rincons to the east, the Santa Ritas to the south and the Tucson Mountains to the west.

Although we had many sunny days, abou...

What an unusual Family Day we had yesterday…. We spent it with the family. (For the Americans, Family Day is the parallel to Presidents Day— a lame excuse for a mid-winter day off).

Tucson was the setting, and we celebrated it at Wendy’s. If that doesn’t sound like such a wonderful venue for a family gathering, l...

From Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, we headed east to Tucson. I had only been there once a few years ago for a business meeting - overnight stay with no car and limited sightseeing. Jim had never been there. We discovered that Tucson is a wonderful place to stay -- especially in February when the rest of the nation was being treated to col...

So I'm here, finally (or I was last night as well just was tired as hell). Dad in his infinite wisdom had us eat literally 6 times yesterday, including one full mexican dinner at the equivalent of 12.30 our time. Surprise surprise, I was still full when I woke up this morning. Some people say this about alcohol...no, I say it about food. Now we'...

Saguaro National Park-A Desert in Springtime The saguaro cactus is the quintessential cactus-the one we all drew as children and see in cartoons-the tall one with the arms. It also happens to be the state plant (tree?) of Arizona. Who knew a national park dedicated to a single type of cactus could be filled with so much beauty? Well a springtime...

I have always had a lifelong ambition of visiting the Saguaro National Park. Like the Grand Canyon and many others, they remain very high on my private list of places in the United States which I should visit some time in the future. Less than two weeks ago I started on this venture, daring the overwhelmingly long flight all the way to Tucson. F...

ARIZONA HIGHLIGHTS: Dust Devils and tumble weeds, tie-off the steering wheel and snooze on Route 60, horse riding at Rancho de los Caballeros, Red Rocks and Granite Dells, Murphy's restaurant in Prescott, Jerome clinging tenaciously to the hillside, Boynton Canyon in Sedona (one of the most magical places on earth), Mii Amo spa (perfection for K...