Championing the makers, artists, and wanderers in all of us.
For my final monthly photo for 2016, here is a photo of the chapel at San Xavier del Bac, Tucson, taken through the fence that separates it from the main part of the Mission. You can see the prayer candles still flickering inside.
The last time – no, the time before last – we visited San Xavier del Bac near Tucson, one of the towers was shrouded in scaffolding while restoration work was done on the 200-year-old mission.
When we visited just this past week, at the end of a quick trip to Tucson, the restored tower had been unveiled, standing in contrast to its mate that has yet to undergo that process.
On the whole, the Mission has held up remarkably well, considering it welcomes 200,000 visitors every year and is still home to an active congregation.
Weekly masses are open to anyone, and we attended a crowded Easter Sunday service there one year. I love that it’s not just an empty historical building but the center of a vibrant community.
“The Mission was created to serve the needs of the local community here, the village of Wa:k (San Xavier District) on the Tohono O’odham reservation, as it still does today.”
I love the feel of free community events where anyone can be in the audience, like outdoor concerts or Ballet Under the Stars.
Outdoor movies are particularly interesting because they turn the whole movie viewing experience on its head. In the theater, it’s all about blocking out the surrounding environment – controlling light and sound so that nothing distracts from what’s on screen. Outdoors, the environment becomes part of the experience.
As a teenager, I saw the movie Twister at a drive-in while a monsoon storm was moving in, the wind gusting hard and the sky turning a surreal shade of orange. I’m pretty sure I thought it was a better movie than it actually was because of the natural drama around me. On the other hand, sometimes the sound isn’t good or something blocks your view or the people from the Portlandia sketch show up.
Do you ever go to free or outdoor movie events?
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Some places for free movies (inside or outside) here in Arizona…
May 2016:
Summer:
Ongoing:
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Mount Lemmon doesn’t have a website.
Which, I guess, makes sense, since it’s a mountain. Although that didn’t stop Mt. Rainier or even Camelback. Maybe the difference is that they’re both the main event in their respective parks. Mt. Lemmon, on the other hand, is just one impressive part of the impressive Santa Catalina Mountains and extensive Coronado National Forest.
It’s right outside Tucson, but, as much as Phillip and I like hanging out in that area, I’ve never been on Mt. Lemmon itself. Tucson is a 1.5 hour drive, and then it takes another hour to wind your way up the mountain, so it kind of requires its own designated trip.
Which is happening soon, because my dad thought we (he, Mom, Phillip and I) needed to take a day trip before Phillip goes back to grad school and disappears for 9 months / can’t do anything fun / gets much busier.
We decided to go to Mt. Lemmon since my mom hasn’t been there either. We’ll drive around, picnic, and maybe take a hike. But probably a short one, because the elevation at the top is about 9,000 feet. That is significantly higher than Denver. It’s actually closer to La Paz, Bolivia’s 11,000+ feet.
Side note: Thinking about this made me wonder about all the high-altitude places I’ve been and how they compare to each other. So I made a little, roughly-to-scale chart. Maybe I’ll do a better one later, where I actually write legibly and measure the lines. Maybe.
Side note to the side note: I’m thinking of titling my chart “Great Heights” or “Altitude is Everything” or “Elevations I Have Known and Loved” or maybe just “Places I’ve Been High.”
Really, the point is that I’m gonna be moving slow up there in the thinner air.
Driving from the Tucson desert to the pine-covered top of Mt. Lemmon takes you through climate zones equivalent to driving from Mexico to Canada.
Mt. Lemmon is one of the sky islands, a poetically-named category of mountains in the Southwest U.S. and Mexico that have dramatically different environments than the areas around them. They have remarkable biodiversity, including plants and animals you normally wouldn’t find in the region.
My favorite is the coatimundi, a mammal that’s native to Central America but also inhabits the sky islands. When we went to Chiricahua National Monument (also sky island territory) a few years back, I got kind of obsessed focused on trying to spot one in the wild. It hasn’t happened yet, but, during the trip, I’ll definitely be on the lookout.
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PS I’ll be posting info from my Craft Camp presentation soon.
