As preparation, we hiked to the top of Mt Wrightson (9453 ft), south of Tucson. Excellent trail system, beautiful day, nice (cool!) views from the top.
Near the top, looking down:
Running down, looking studly:
Yesterday we stopped by the Asarco copper mine for a tour. How many industries have a place where you can learn all about it and view the actual operations? I tried to picture a window tour of a Freescale fab and decided that would be a super cool idea for a tourist destination. Anyway, it turned out to be complicated, technical, and really interesting. I was too enthralled by the bubbling copper tanks to remember to get a photo of the best part (oops, guess we have to go back someday). But I did snap a picture of the open-pit mine:
There is a bunch of land reclamation and recycling work going on, including the addition of "Asarcows" to help get the land back to its normal desert state.
One of the tires from the giant mining trucks:
From there we drove down to Tubac, an artist community. Lots of creative arts and crafts to look at. If we had a home (that wasn't on wheels) and were decorating in the "Southwest" theme, there would be tons of great options here.
We finished up at Tumacacori National Historic Park, which was even more deserted than Tubac. Interesting Spanish mission church and history exhibits:
Coming up... a 24-hour orienteering rogaine on the Mogollon Rim... sweet
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