June 20 Pima County Courthouse and Tohono Chul Park

     I worked at the Benton County courthouse in Prosser, WA. for 4-1/2 years.  It was a big square brick building that looked like a lot of libraries and other government buildings built in its 1925 era.  Then I moved to the Kennewick office, which was housed in a single story office building.  A few weeks ago we went to a music festival downtown and ended up watching an act that was performing in the courtyard of the courthouse.  I wanted Tom to take pictures so I could send them to my former coworkers, but he said it'd be prettier real early some morning.  Today was the day that we were there at 6:45 and the moon was still out.

The door to the Assessor's Office - same dept.             The elevator was closed off since this was a Sunday

I worked in in WA.                                                      and this is an open walkway from the front

                                                                                    courtyard to the back one.



Tohono Chul Park in Tucson

This is a desert landscape park that also houses a greenhouse where plants are grown for them to sell.  We bought 3 small pots of cacti that I'll use in an indoor display in our home.

      one of several lizards we saw                                                              example of Southwestern wall art

this wall had a nice sound when the water went from vessel to vessel and birds knew where to get a drink

an Indian petroglyph rock

a native bee habitat

the round cactus is appropriately called a barrel cactus

June 4, 2011 Colossal Cave and 2 buildings in Vail

This cave is only 6 miles from our new home.The hour-long guided tour was interesting.  The guide said several movies have been filmed in it, along with an episode of Sesame Street.  This County park sits close to part of the Saguaro National Monument.

We saw several of these prickly pear cactus while driving through the park and walking to the entrance.  By far the biggest paddles we've seen on any so far.  Sauce and jelly is made from these cactus.

These formations inside the cave are called draperies, for obvious reasons

The 2 strips on the left are called bacon and the narrow white strips are the same substance that didn't form as much.

Tese formations are called the 4 nuns, but our guide said he thinks it looks more like 3 nuns praying and an iguana on their right - you can see he is bent like a toad.  We agreed.

                                                 Temperature is 70 because it is a dry cave

The saguaro with the half moon arm reminded me of the flame on the cross - the Methodist Church symbol.  It is Sunday, after all.

We've seen several saguaro with these fan shaped tops - I think I read that they had been damaged if the look like this

                   This tiny Catholic Church is in Vail.  They ring the bells every day - I think at noon.

It was built in 1937.

Vail is the town between 2 tracks and this building (circa 1890) has served as the freight office, Post Office, including some candy and canned goods.  Article says many men can remember their job of catching the mail bag that was thrown from the train.  The two tracks carry several trains each day.  We, the train buffs, haven't been able to find out why one rolls through slowly, yet the other one flies by. 

The only other commercial buildings in Vail are a strip mall, newer Post Office, mini storage units, a restaurant, gas station, schools, custom furniture shop, mini mart and a clinic.