Two nights at Miracle Springs Resort and Spa in Desert Hot Springs, as it has in the past, offered a relaxing, quiet spot in the center of Palm Desert that served as home base as we branched out across the desert floor.
Breakfast at the Cottage Too proved once again to be a friendly place with a fulfilling menu. On the other hand, our dinner at Pommes Frites in Palm Springs was largely ruined by one of the rudest waiters I’ve ever experienced. Scratch that off the list. On our second morning we drove to the Warm Sands Neighborhood in Palm Springs for breakfast at Townie Bagels/ Bakery Cafe. That night our dinner at P.F. Chang’s China Bistro in Rancho Mirage was superb and proved to be a nice cap for our stay in that area.
Much of the landscape in Arizona is punctuated with various cactus. (Tarmo Hannula/The Pajaronian)
Driving across the Arizona border meant nothing more than passing a sign, being welcomed by a crowd of Saguaro cactus and gas dropping to $2.82 a gallon. The five-and-a-half hour drive to Tucson meant sailing past a string of oddly named “ditches” along Highway 10, like Quartz Ditch, Ghost Ditch, Tarentuala Ditch and Mud Ditch. Then we passed Sore Finger Road before arriving in Chandler.
On such road trips we’ve grown used to fetching a coffee in the mid-afternoon. Scanning the internet, Sarah found Peixoto Coffee in a town called Chandler. Of course the name stood out because of the widely known Lakeside Organic Gardens in the Pajaro Valley owned by Dick Peixoto, who I’ve dealt with umpteen times for The Pajaronian.
A cactus wren takes a perch inside a jungle gym of cactus limbs at the Desert Museum near Tucson. (Tarmo Hannula/The Pajaronian)
Out of curiosity I texted Dick a photo of the place and one of their coffee mugs as we settled in for a caffe latte. He instantly responded and asked if I could pick up one of their mugs for him, which I gladly did. Adding to the story, the kind man at the counter told us that Peixoto Coffee stems from a family of growers in Brazil where they grow their own coffee beans.
We rolled into Tucson at 7pm, where we were handed the keys to a room on the fifth floor of The Hampton Inn with a giant window with a view of a brick wall.
A metal sculpture stands outside a Fine Art Gallery in Tubac, Arizona. (Tarmo Hannula/The Pajaronian)
For dinner that night we walked three blocks to Saigon Night and got a good slice of the local life of Tucson. In the morning we drove south to the famous Tumacácori National Historic Park. Their website states: “Tumacácori sits at a cultural crossroads in the Santa Cruz River Valley. Here O’odham, Yaqui and Apache people met and mingled with European Jesuit and Franciscan missionaries, settlers and soldiers, sometimes in conflict and sometimes in cooperation.”
We strolled the grounds to the crumbling, yet stately Mission of the Pimaas, with origins stemming back to 1691. We visited the tiny cemetery out back and the various ruins sprinkled about the grounds. An indoor display showed us the handsome basketry by the O’odham made of yucca leaves and roots, obsidian arrowheads and tools, and their highly decorated pottery.
Afterwards we enjoyed cold sodas across the street at the legendary Abe’s Old Tumacacori Bar. It was established in 1926, and is the longest running, continuous family owned and operated bar in Arizona. A giant moose head over the fireplace kept watch over the place as we enjoyed our Cokes.
On the next part of our trip we stop in at the historic Tubac Village, established in 1752 to delve into the history of the Anza Trail before visiting relatives in Sahuarita and then head west to Calexico and Yuma.
