...toward the Tucson city lights.

Before I start this post about our trip to Tubac and Mexico I have a very important thing to tell you.
Last night as Michael was packing our bags and the girls are running around collecting their stuff I called the airline to confirm our reservation. I found out that I had made a mistake and instead of leaving at Friday at midnight we are really leaving Saturday at midnight. Oops. I guess I really did need a vacation.
Now back to our regular scheduled post....
One day on our trip we went South to Tubac and then on to Nogales, Mexico.
Tubac is an artists communtity that has it's origins in an old border fort town. Our friends had never been there so off we went. We brought a packed lunch and everyone ate in the van when we got there. The main village in Tubac is a bunch of adobe type buildings that are all tourist stores and art galleries. It was fun to walk through them and look and see what Southwest artists are up to. The one thing that really caught my eye is the art by this woman who manages Cirque de Soleil in Las Vegas. Think that style in figure form. I'm sorry I have no name or pictures but we've all got good imaginations, eh.
Xan felt like we should take a tour of the old presidio so off we went. This is a picture of she and her friend Kelly goofing off in school.And then while we walking around it was raining. After the rain stopped there was this gorgeous rainbow. Xan snapped this of me.
We had had enough of window shopping and playing tourist in Tubac so off we head to Mexico.These are our friends that we are staying with Beth (mom), Keith (dad), Ian (kid), Reilly (another kid), and Kelly (yet another kid). They are wonderful friends and hosts. It's one of those rare friendships where everyone gets along stupendously and sharing space with each other is relaxed and easy. I met Beth in an infant massage class just after our number 1's were born. We've been good friends ever since.
We walked around Nogales and did some shopping. Xan bought a cowboy hat, she's a regular vacquero now. Artie bought a red shirt for $4 that say's "pirates rock". Now Nogales is the border town of Mexico and Arizona that is just South of Tucson. We use to go there a couple of times a year when we lived in Tucson. Let me tell you...it hasn't changed much. It's still a dirty border town full of tourists and tourist trap shops. I think it was quite an eye opener for Miss Xan. We ambled around for an hour or so and then started asking the locals for suggestions for dinner. We ate at a great local joint called La Posada. This is us having a fun meal.By the way, the flan was to die for.
It was yet another fun day of vacation and this time we all (8 of us because Beth had to leave early to be home for a Girl Scout cookie pick up) squished into the Vanagon and drove off north toward the Tucson city lights.

...loving faces.

WELCOME TO THE ARIZONA RENAISSANCE FESTIVAL...

What a beautiful show. On Saturday we went to the fair to visit with some friends of ours that we know from working at the Florida Ren Fair. It was great good fun to be patrons and to be able to see shows. We went with our friends that we are staying with so there were 9 of us. We are getting pretty good at travelling in a pack of 9.
We saw the Mud show, the Pirate show, and the Dead Bob show. They were all so entertaining and in the case of Dead Bob a bit crude and lude but still very funny. Oh and we saw the Jousting...a bit too violent for my taste but we saw the last show which is the joust to the death. I should have known better. We saw our friends working just like we were in Florida. That was a bit strange seeing them in garb and we were not.
Xan had to buy a grain of rice with your name on it. Personally, I have always wondered why these are sold at Ren Fairs but they are...at all of them. Artie got some pirate trinkets. I'm sure I must of bought something but I can't remember what. Maybe it was just mead.
As we were getting ready to leave the show at dusk we ran into the Wyldmen who do the Mud show. I stopped them to thank them for such a fun show. Low and behold they whipped out their musical vegetables and played them for us.And then Michael the broccoli freak had to learn how to play the broccoli.I am going to put a link to their website in my sidebar. Anyone who plays vegetables for a living deserves to have permanent stasis in my blog. So track to the right and click away.
After the show was closed we went out to dinner with the 9 of us and our friends Nixi, Lance, and their son Elan.
After a dinner full of revelry and laughs we all got into our various magical vehicles and flittered away into the evening air.It was a day full of good times and loving faces.

"It's all about the people."

It seems that this vacation is turning out to be all about the people. Not that we aren't doing fun things and going fun places but it's the people that are making our vacation.
On Thursday morning (still wearing our travelling clothes because it seems our luggage needed some extra time to be tourists in Omaha) we went to the Rodeo Parade. Now, all the years that we lived in Tucson we never once went to the Rodeo Parade. It was a girls day out...none of the men in the household at our friend's house wanted to go. We drove to the Tucson Mall and took a shuttle down to the Rodeo grounds and then we walked along the road until we got to a spot where we could get a good view. Here are some of the things that we saw:


This parade is said to be the longest non-motorized parade in the nation. I don't know about you but I was expecting to see a lot more creativity and imagination dispayed but mostly it was people riding on horses, local marching bands, people riding on horses, stuff like what you see in my expertly taken pictures (I know, I know I've got such a keen eye), and more people riding on horses. I was told later that all the horses are a very big deal. Apparently one gets to see all kinds of different kinds of horses. I admit it, I saw all kinds of different horses. I was so impressed that I tool all kinds of pictures of them. I quess I'm just not about the horses. People weren't even dressed interestingly. A few were but not many.
So, we watched the parade for about 40 minutes and then the young girls got bored so we moved on to more excitng things like this:Now we thought that this was worth our attention.
Of course, there were a few "fry bread" booths to scope out. Ah, to be back in the land of real fry bread made by real Tucsonians. You can get plain (that means hot with grease) or with powdered sugar, cinnamon sugar, and (my personal favorite) taco style with beans and stuff. Hey, the Native Americans have been around longer than my tribe and if it's good enough for them then it's good enough for me. This is a picture of all us girls:As were sitting there a group of young thugs in training walked by and threw something on our blanket. It just so happens that a few minutes before that someone had thrown something at Artie's pantleg while we were watching the sumo wrestling. This thing is a small glass vile filled with some sort of yellowish liquid and when the vile is broken there is a vile smell that comes wafting forth. It smells like rotten eggs. One of the kids told me that one of the vendors was selling them. How did I miss that? Anyway I was told later that "you should have seen the look on my face" as I turned to the young thugs in training and told them exactly what I thought of what they just did. I remember the word "rotten" being repeatedly used.
All in all it was a great good time. We packed up our stinky, rotten egg smelling blanket and took the bus back to the mall.
I wish the parade itself had been visually more fun but like I said, "It's all about the people."