Do it with a heart wide open.

My aunt has talked about her take on Arizona for years, and now that my sojourn has come to a close, I have my own opinions. While I have found a natural kind of love for my own home of New Hampshire, there is definitely something special about the vast, sun bleached desert. As with any place that has been viewed in photos but not experienced, I had certain expectations of Arizona. I left with a very different idea of the landscape and what it had to offer.

First of all, it was very diverse. My mind's eye saw typical sand dunes, cactus and bone-dry landscape of every movie set in the mid-west. While this was one aspect of Arizona, it was just the beginning.

The "main drags" in Tuscon certainly consisted of everything I had intuited; dirty brown rust on just about every plant, animal and building in view, with an over abundance of southern based fast food restaurants and Mexican eateries stacked on top of Walmarts, K Marts and such. But just outside of the cities and suburbs there was immense beauty, all different kinds of beauty.



On the very outskirts of Tuscon is an outdoor museum with several names; more widely known as the Arizona-Senora Museum or simply, the Desert Museum. The ride to it was amazing as we drove down a deep winding road into vast green hills that were actually reminiscent of some huge European valley. I felt like running through it singing "The hills are alive!", but not for fear of being spanked by the surprise tiny cacti that hide among the bushes.

I was forced to push my aunt around in a manual wheelchair, since all of their electric chairs were charging. I can't say I got the best possible experience of it because I was throwing her up and down the hills with the sun beating on my reddened skull. Also, it was a combination museum, botanical garden and zoo, and the first exhibit was a pair of cougars.

Mountain lions are grossly abundant in Arizona outside of the cage, something I had experienced when on a nature tour I was on shortly before the Desert Museum visit. We were riding around Safari-like and there were dozens of big red evil signs screaming [[HIGH MOUNTAIN LION ACTIVITY]] which I read as [[DON'T GET OUT OF THAT THING TO TAKE A PICTURE OR THEY WILL EAT YOU ALIVE]]. Really, that wasn't far from the truth based on the neon green papers they handed out that explained how there were cougars coming out in the day and actually stalking people. Stalking.

So, when I walked up to the mountain lion exhibit, I was a bit perturbed. The information given to me had been that it is best to look them directly in the eyes and not to lose that visual contact, lest they make you out as weak and yummy. Naturally, I stared those two up like we were about to break-dance it out. Although I was probably safe enough, I still felt like they could somehow get to me, with the knowledge that they were literally just off of the beaten path from where I slept at night.



Then there was the famed Tombstone, which seemed a little hokey to me, but had it's merits. On one hand it seemed a homogenized and touristy wild west where only maybe there were once real cowboys and showdowns. It was one long strip of shops filled with overpriced turquoise jewelery, Native American symbols and pictures; and all the cowboy hats, snake skin belts and commemorative key chains one could stomach.

Yet there did seem to be a bit of that Cowboys-and-Indians dirty dog west kind of feeling in the air. If you venture away from the glossed up version of something that was once untamed, you could almost find the feeling of it. Almost.

All in all, it was cute, and most of the time I felt like I could have had the same experience from the feau-west at Canobie Lake Park.



My diamond in the rough was a large town just past Tombstone. It has a silly name, so I automatically loved it.

Bisbee. Bis-bee.
Busy bee. Business. Bee. Bis. Bizz.
You can call me fruity if you like, but it had me at "hello".

I fell especially in love with the alley that was as if it had been cut out and shipped from some in-between place in Italy or Spain or something. Unfortunately, I had eaten about ten meals and drank a dozen or so different drinks, so I wasn't in the mood sit on the patio of the little restaurant that pulled on my heart strings.

The majority of Bisbee was littered with antique and novelty shops, specifically aimed for the out-of-state visiting type like myself. It didn't seem to be a place one could actually call home without wanting to hurl oneself off of the nearest mountain, which wouldn't be a far throw. It's literally built into one.

None the less, charming.


At the end of the day, Arizona was a great and different kind of retreat. It was in the low 80's every day, with that dry heat that the elderly seem to find irresistable. I found it a welcome change from the shit-colored snow and bizarre weather that has been changing with the days of the week. I didn't think much about work, and mostly just enjoyed the atmosphere. It was what I needed - I will never regret a moment of it.