Mid-winter break came and went in a flash! I guess that happens when you decide to go across the country and back in four short days with two kids. My parents vacation in Tucson for the months of February and March this year and wanted us to come down and visit. Since our only break during that time was mid-winter break, we made the most of our extra long weekend and flew out Friday evening. Four and a half hours on the plane, two hours in the car, and a two hour time change and we were exhausted, but excited when we finally hit the sack for the night!
Rain had come the day we arrived, so we woke up to a thick fog covering the tops of the mountains. As you can see, we had a great view of the mountains from the patio of their condo! I watched the sunrise and the fog start to dissipate, we ate breakfast my mom cooked, and got ourselves ready to do some hiking at Saguaro National Park.
Saguaro National Park was about a 40 minute drive from their condo (ugh...more car time!). But, it was well worth the drive. We stopped at the Visitor's Center and picked up Junior Ranger materials for the boys to work on and got some maps for trails. The park was really neat. You could drive through the entire loop, choosing to stop on the side of the road for pictures, or parking at other parts to do some hiking. We did most of the hikes offered and took pictures at most of the stops too. The weather was perfect! Sunny and warm. The sun felt amazing!
One of our favorite stops was to climb atop these huge rocks! It was probably a bit dangerous for the boys in hindsight, but they were willing and excited about it. I think my mom likely had a heart attack when they both tried to climb down at the same time with only Scott up there with them. But, the views were amazing!
The loop took us back around to the Visitor's Center where the boys completed their Junior Ranger packet and earned a badge and certificate from a park ranger! It was so awesome! They each picked out something from the gift shop (of course). Evan picked a stuffed animal Saguaro catcus named Sunny and Sean picked out a knock-off Lego cactus set.
We hit the road to grab lunch at Chic-Fil-A (of course) before going back to the condo for some pool time. As Saturday would be our warmest day there we wanted to make good use of the pool. And we did! 3 hours pool side was so perfect!
We grilled at the condo for dinner that evening. Hamburgers, hot dogs, corn on the cob, salad, and chips! It was a nice, relaxing evening in watching the Olympics on TV.
Sunday we started our day watching the sunrise again and we went to breakfast at a cute place called Oink. They were known for their...bacon! Of course we had to get a flight of bacon and I had the most amazing french toast ever!
We drove out to the Sonoran Desert Museum, which is actually more like a zoo, but it's actually in Saguaro National Park on the west side (yesterday we were on the east side of the park). This place was so cool! We started off by seeing a bird show with falcons and raptors. We then walked around the desert and saw wolves, javelinas, a mountain lion, and many more animals. Evan did a sting ray exhibit with my parents where they could touch the sting ray. The cactus and flowers were beautiful there too!
They had activity books for the kids to do throughout the park with stamping stations near some of the animals. The stamps were in the shape of the footprints those animals make. The boys loved getting their stamps! We were all pretty tired after a few hours so we drove back into town and stopped at a brewery in downtown Tucson for some snacks and beers.
Even though it wasn't as warm as Saturday, the boys still wanted to sit in the hot tub. We brought a beer down to the hot tub and relaxed for a while before getting ready to head out to Trail Dust Town that evening.
Trail Dust Town wasn't too far from their condo and it's kind of set back mixed in with a Target and some restaurants. But, this place was so cute! It was set to look like the wild frontier with cowboys and old fashioned shops. We bought the boys a wristband so they could ride the ferris wheel, carousel, and do gold panning. They had a blast! We stayed for the 7pm pistolero show that was fantastic! At one point in the show, Scott wasn't clapping and he was wearing his Detroit Tiger's hat. One of the actors looked at him and said, "What? You're from Detroit? You see these kinds of things every day?" Obviously referring to shooting and explosions. We died laughing!
Monday, on our last full day, we made breakfast sandwiches to eat at the condo before going out to Colossal Cave over near the Saguaro National Park. We had originally planned to do more hiking in Sabino Canyon, but decided to try the cave instead. It was cool out in the morning and even more cool waiting to go in the cave. The kids loved the gift shop with all their neat trinkets and gems.
The cave tour was pretty neat! It was actually 70 degrees in the cave so we were nice and toasty. It was a little stressful making sure the boys didn't fall or slip, but they had handrails that were installed at some point. I'm glad we did it! I've never done a cave tour anywhere before. I can cross that off our bucket list!
After the caves we stopped at a place for lunch called Vinburger. The burgers were awesome! Sean was having a mini meltdown. He had been fighting a cold the entire trip and I think he was just tired at that point. While we would have liked to go to the Sabino Canyon after lunch, we went back to the condo and just rested the rest of the afternoon. We swam and sat in the hot tub, the kids played, and by 5pm our friend Howie, from college, drove down from Phoenix to join us for dinner on our last night.
Dinner was at El Charro as I was craving some good Tex-Mex food! It was great seeing Howie and catching up. We even surprised Scott with an ice cream cake that my mom picked up from Coldstone by her condo that afternoon while we were at the pool. A great end to our amazing trip!
Tuesday morning came early as we had to make the two hour drive to the airport before our flight at 10:30am. The flight was relatively smooth and we made it home in one piece. While it was a lot of traveling in four days, I'm glad we went! And we're obviously grateful my parents made it possible for us to be able to come!
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