Rants and Ramblings: random commentary about culture, media, politics, technology and whatnot.

if you go: tucson

In a meeting today, a coworker mentioned that he’s heading out to Tucson this week for a vacation (he has a connection to someone on the Colorado Rockies, who are doing spring training there). I got a little over-enthusiastic and started volunteering names of awesome Mexican restaurants. And then I followed up with an e-mail that started out with “here’s those restaurants” … and turned into a mini travel guide. I went just a little overboard with the enthusiasm there. When I told Rob about it, his response was, “Did he back away slowly?”

Anyway, I’m reposting the e-mail here, lest all that travel information go to waste:

From the waaaaay-more-information-than-you-really-wanted department…
I started typing up those restaurants and wound up writing a mini travel guide.

Mexican restaurants:

El Charro
I’d recommend the original downtown location. Neat space. Awesome chimichangas. (They take credit for inventing the chimi.) Occasional mariachis.

Mi Nidito
Bill Clinton once ate here. They’re very, very proud of this — lots of photos by the door, an “el presidente” item on the menu, etc. Good food.

On a hot day, I’d also highly recommend a strawberry or lemon eegee (basically a slushie, with chunks of fruit inside) at Eegee’s, a Tucson-based sub sandwich chain.

If you’re into nature stuff:

Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum
I like to go there just to see the prairie dogs.

Tohono Chul Park
Nice desert landscaping; their Tea Room has pretty good food (although I’d avoid the prickly pear lemonade. “sweet” doesn’t begin to describe it).

Mt. Lemmon
Southernmost ski resort in the U.S. Usually only open for skiing a few days a year, it seems, though you can hike around and ride the ski lift pretty much all year. They had a massive fire on the mountain there about two years ago that wiped out a lot of stuff. The ski resort survived, though.

Sabino Canyon
A beautiful place for hiking, or just ride the tram up/down the roadway. Watch out for mountain lions.

And pretty much anywhere you can see mountains is awesome for watching a sunset.

Also: This is Rodeo Weekend (the grade-schoolers actually get Thursday and Friday off school; remnants of the days when the city was more about agriculture and ranching). Might be fun for the people-watching alone if you’ve never been.

I don’t know much about travelling to Mexico. I do know that Rocky Point (Puerto Peñasco) is super popular — sort of an American college town on the beach, but in Mexico; I think it’s about 4 hours away.