Adventures Around Mount Lemmon

May 2010



Ammon, Liz and I drove down to Tucson to check out a few spots we’ve heard are pretty great. As we drove into town we gave Tom a call to go with us to BK’s Carne Asada & Hot Dogs to try their famous Sonoran Hot Dog. Turns out it was right around the corner from his apartment.

BK’s was tasty, but we think Liz’s Sonoran dogs from our bar-b-que with Marth and Ben were better. It was fun hangin’ with Tom and catching up on all his happenings. Tom, we hope you can get out of there soon and good luck with the ladies!
Next stop, Mount Lemon. Tom gave us directions and we headed up the mountain. Mount Lemmon is known for having the major biomes fund between Mexico and Canada and you can drive through them all in about half an hour or so. It was pretty cool to watch the terrain change from arid desert, to brush, and to high desert.
As we neared the top the ski lift caught our eye. We bought a ticket and before I knew it we were about 30 feet off the ground in a little metal chair on our way up the mountain. At the top the guy told us we could hike around so we did a little exploring. We went by the outside of Stewart observatory on the top of the mountain, chatted with the guy on the watchtower and then headed back. Wouldn’t you know they shut down the ski life in the meantime. I was a little disappointed as I had been looking forward to the ride back, but running down the green grass on the ski slopes quickly cured my angst. You can see the lift at http://www.skithelemmon.com/page2.html
Who’d have guessed what we saw halfway down Gobbler’s Way… Two turkey hens! After we followed and watched them awhile, Ammon ran up the hill to get a closer look. When Liz and I heard a gobble we knew Ammon was into something better than hens and we set out up the hill. We followed him from about 20 yards for about 20 minutes watching him strut. Ammon “gobbled” and got him to gobble back several times. Who knew my husband speaks TURKEY!



On the way home we stopped at the Cookie Cabin for a nice little snack, then headed to one of the top 20 Legendary places to eat in the country, El Charro Cafe to taste their famous cuisine. Mhh. http://www.elcharrocafe.com/
What a great day!