A Quick Getaway to Tucson
Brown and grey dominate the color palette of Connecticut in March, and the weather is fickle: it can be near 70 one day and the next barely reach 40. So when two friends suggested a few days in Tucson, I jumped at the chance. These dear friends are fellow photographers, and we hadn’t seen each other since before COVID; our last trip was to Death Valley in February, 2020. Another fellow photographer also lives in Tucson, and our last trip together was to Provence in 2022 . Though all of us have taken trips with the same photographer leader, my three other pals didn’t know each other, so I thought this would be a great opportunity for them to meet.
The warm, dry air embraced me as I deplaned, and the vibrant blue sky promised several days of fair weather ahead. If you love sun, Tucson is a good bet, since they enjoy 340 days of it a year — though I’m not sure “enjoy” is the right word for their blistering summers.
Our adventure began with a stroll around Old Tucson, the picturesque heart of the city, where art is on display in myriad forms, from cactus gardens to weathered doors to murals on adobe walls. After an uninspiring winter, it was good to dust off my camera!
In the Botanical Garden, our next stop, there were abundant signs of impending cactus bloom. To live out here demands learning a whole new category of flora: barrel cactus, rabbit ears, agave, prickly pear (I never knew the pads were purple), cholla, organ pipes, aloe — and a variety of others too numerous to mention.
