After a long, desperately needed rest, we woke up just after 6:00 this morning and spent some time getting our bearings and organizing our room before heading for breakfast. We chose one of our favorite restaurants from last time we were in town: Cora’s Cafe in South Tucson. I think it was even better this visit!
The same friendly, attentive young man was working as the server, and it was just as colorful and festive inside as we remembered. Today they were offering two specials: cheese enchiladas with red sauce and two eggs, and nopales with chorizo. Rich got the enchiladas with eggs over medium, and I was considering the other special but I’m not generally a fan of chorizo (I might be persuaded to try it if they have it next time we’re here).
But, of course, I was in the mood for nopales, so I got the #9, which is scrambled eggs with nopales, green peppers, onions, tomatoes, beans and corn tortillas. We were still dehydrated from yesterday’s travel, so we drank plenty of orange juice and coffee. Everything was delicious and somehow we were able to eat everything on our plates, even though the portions were large! I think we were still hungry from yesterday, too.
Mica View Loop:
After breakfast we set aside some time for errand-running. We always make a quick trip to a grocery store for a few items, like bottled water and paper towels, that we couldn’t bring with us, and snacks for the trail. It’s not exciting but it’s necessary, and sometimes we find unusual goodies, like guava pastries in the Florida grocery stores. We ended up at Fry’s, which was the closest store to Cora’s that we could find. Decent place, and we found everything we needed easily, even the “enormous”-size paper towels. They didn’t have any interesting pastries, though.
And finally it was time for some hiking! We decided to go to the eastern side of Saguaro National Park to check out a trail that Rich saw on the map but had never hiked before: the Freeman Homestead trail. There were other short trails in the area that we could add on if we were looking for a longer hike, since the homestead trail is only about a mile long.
We stopped at the visitor center first, which turned out to be a very good move. We found out that the “Hike for Health” program has apparently been expanded and we could now earn a pin for hiking in Saguaro National Park (and the pin has a saguaro on it, of course)! In order to claim the pin, we had to hike at least three miles in the park.The homestead trail we were planning on hiking, plus the Mica Vew loop, would give us the total mileage required.
While at the visitors center, we also discovered that whoever makes the prickly pear licorice we’ve enjoyed so much on our travels here has expanded their offerings. Now they also make prickly pear jelly beans, hard candy, white chocolate bark, and gummy bears. We bought a bag of hard candy and two bags of the jelly beans for our hikes.
We headed to Mica View first, taking the one way loop on Cactus Forest Drive. As the woman at the visitors center had warned us, the parking lot was full. We’ve never seen the park anywhere near this busy! No spots were available in the parking area but fortunately some of the nearby pulloffs were open, so we pulled into one of them, right in front of a couple from Oregon who were also planning to hike in the area.
We spent a long time on the Mica View loop, taking some photos while we still had morning sun and enjoying the high density of cactus in the vast forest here. They were incredible. Saguaros are all around, prickly pears underfoot and chollas always watching from the sides of the trails. At one point, as we got further from the picnic area we started to see some mammillaria (Arizona fishhook). So cool! They were mostly 4+ inches in this area, in clusters since their seeds germinate well, and some forming pups.
We circled back around using the Cactus Forest trail. By now the sun was harsh and taking photos wasn’t practical in most locations. We simply enjoyed the scenery and each other’s company and conversation. Then we took a long, slow drive along the rest of the Cactus Forest loop, taking in all the cactus scenery along the way! There are also gorgeous mountains with washes and waterfalls (dry now, but probably gorgeus when running) as a backdrop.
Once we reached the end of the one way loop, we turned left onto the short road to Javelina picnic area. Just after making the turn is the parking area for the homestead trail. Fortunately there were 3 or 4 open spots. This was a great hike too! Quite a different ecosystem here with lots of prickly pear and brittlebush intertwined, jojoba and creosote bush, and some saguaros nd barrels of course. The hike loses elevation as it goes south towarda wash near the homestead and then cilmbs some steps back to the parking area.
The homestead is mostly gone, but you can still locate two corners of it beneath several inches of sand and gravel. There are also some iron artifacts scattered nearby, and some colored glass that might be from the period. (I also saw one of the mammillarias here wiht fruits!) After descensing to the wash we noticed a “cube” in the vegetation, could’t figure out what it was. Later at the visitors center, we learned from the ranger on duty that it had beena well, old fashioned kind with a crank and chain/rope. The Freemans later had a more modern well dug (we dind’t find that( but they didn’t like the taste of the water so they continued to use the old well.
Just like this morning, for supper we returned to an old favorite place from our last visit: Barrio Brewing Company. It was surprisingly very busy for 3:30pm on a Wednesday! For two years I’ve been craving the beer-battered fish tacos I enjoyed so much last time, so I had to order them again. Rich had the southwest burger, which was also excellent. And the beers were fantastic after our long hikes in the desert. I tried the Ruby Red IPA, which was unavailable last time, and Rich had the Copperhead Ale. We relaxed outside on the porch again while we ate, watching the long western trains as they passed through.
