The wonderful Tucson, Arizona

As it turns out, this blog post is incredibly late. But don't blame us, we have had incredibly bad internet. First the Grand Canyon hotel had terrible internet, then we moved on to Vegas and thought 'yes, Vegas should have awesome internet' forget that. It doesn't. Until we got to Treasure Island that is. But that's a whole other story, back to Tucson, that's what the post is about after all. In Tucson we had tee'd up to stay with Jeff and Brenda, family friends. They were incredibly accommodating, taking in near strangers and inviting us into their home, looking after us like we had been rescued from an abandoned ship, it was exactly what we needed. During our stay, we were shown around the greater Tucson area, and what sights there were to see! Read on...

After a delicious lunch Jeff & Brenda drove us around the Saguaro National Park (as it turns out, its pronounced Swa-ro) 

Some beautiful scenery from the national park. 

Click on the panorama for a better view of the park.

Being the clutz Lauren is, she managed to get one of these spikes stuck in her foot within the first few minutes of entering the park.

The arms just look so cool!

As far as the eye can see. 

Paul McCartney's house which is where Linda McCartney passed away a few doors down from Jeff & Brenda's.

A view down the gully wherein lies old Tucson film studios. A few western films are still shooting there. 

On our first full day with Jeff & Brenda they took us to the Desert Museum which showcased native animals, plants and saguaro cactus (you'll see plenty of them in this post). 

Lucky for us we got to see a bat! A damn good looking bat if I must say!

We also got to see a few wolves which was pretty cool.

A view of a section of the park.

A dead cactus

Mickey Mouse? I guess that's where Walt got his inspiration from. Problem solved. 

Teddy bear cactus.... trust me they aren't soft though.

Now these little beasts are called Javelina (pronounced havalina). These were in the desert museum in a nice closed environment, meaning they cannot harm you or pose any threat. Mind you, despite looking like very hairy pigs, they can be quite dangerous, vicious more so with their massive teeth. Let me just say you don't want to cuddle one of these beasts at night, stick to your dog for now.  So as it turns out, one night when we were walking up to the main part of the house, we happened to bump into a group of roughly 17 javelinas just loitering (loitering is frowned upon in the states by the way), so naturally we weren't impressed with their presence. Not only were they loitering, but they were also blocking the gate to which we used to enter the house. So Lauren the genius, remembered what Brenda told her when confronted with a beast. The problem was she remembered the part concerned with warning away a bear, not a pack of hairy pigs. Nonetheless, Lauren went on to jump up and down shouting a strange noise (one that I had never heard) to warn away these animals, but little did we know that yelling at them was fruitless because they were mostly deaf. Still, it would have been extremely entertaining to watch two grown humans jumping and screaming to a group of un-fased pigs. But the pigs finally retreated (probably freaked out by the obnoxiously strange humans jumping at them) and cleared the pathway to we could enter the house. 

A dead saguaro that had recently collapsed.

A 150 plus year old saguaro, this thing was just huge. We made Jeff stand next to it for comparison.

Turns out it makes Lauren look even shorter than she actually is (which is surprising).

A bobcat.... which reminded us a bit of Alfie the cat.

This bighorn sheep was entertaining to watch. It would just lay there and watch the tourists go by thinking it was king (rightfully so).

$2 beers at Tiny's, you cant go wrong with that at all (especially when you look at the size of them!)

An old Spanish mission that is still in used on the Indian reservation. 

A keen eye will spot the eagle in the arch. 

This was the old airbase. Hundreds upon hundreds of abandoned airplanes had been left here. Its that big you can see almost one thousand of them on Google Earth.  

Inside our little guesthouse featuring cowboy Kristian. Calm down ladies. 

The outside of our gorgeous little guest house.

The amazing patio outside the guesthouse. Despite it being a little cold, it still got used. 

View from the guest house

Mickey Mouse cactus again. 

Tombstone.
Jeff & Branda kindly drove us down to tombstone (which we greatly appreciated!), a place that I had wanted to go to for a very long time. Its an old cowboy town, very famous for the gunfight that went down at O.K. Corral. Watch the movie Tombstone if you would like to learn more or Google it.

This was an old Famous Western bar in Tombstone where many famous cowboys had lived and died. So we decided to have lunch. 

Lauren tried to put me in the coffin, but instead I posed for a photo. 

In front of the famous old bar. 

One of the old buildings in Tombstone. 

Tombstone main street. 

A typical old building in the main street of tombstone. 

A typical street on tombstone, minus the Christmas tree. 

As it turns out, if I were to get on a horse I would tear my jeans open beyond belief. So, like a lady, I decided to side saddle this one, and it paid off. I got to keep my jeans for another day. 

The gallows out the back of the tombstone court house. 7 men were hung in this very spot. Spooky. 

This was the old tombstone graveyard, where many famous cowboys were finally laid to rest.

The grave site of those killed in the OK Corral fight. 

As it turns out Lauren is more open to try things other people are with us. So what a perfect opportunity to introduce her to Teppanyaki. And as it turns out, she loved it! Revelation!

This guy loved fire, it was awesome. 

It was also Lauren's birthday that night (not really, but if you tell them that they give you free ice cream and $15 off, I call that a win), so she got a free birthday ice cream and sung happy birthday to in Japanese which made her incredibly embarrassed.

Just a little present we left Jeff and Brenda for their amazing hospitality. It was a steel quail crossing sign, because they tend to get a lot of them in the backyard, naturally. 

And finally, just another quick Thank You to Jeff & Brenda for taking us in and doing so much for us. Staying with you was like being with family and we truly appreciate everything you did for us..... especially making us buy shoes and giving us some warmer clothes. As it turned out we really needed those clothes, otherwise we would have literally frozen to death in the -16 C temperatures the Grand Canyon threw at us. We appreciate everything you did for us, immensely. We only hope that you come visit Australia again and we can show you everything we love about Melbourne for a couple of days, just to return the favour!

So speaking of the Grand Canyon, damn it was cold! Like I said before, it was -16C with knee high mounds of snow. But damn that made for amazing sightseeing. Hopefully we can upload the photos in the next day or so providing the internet is nice to us.

So until then, we will speak to you all soon, and hope everyone's well!
Kristian & Lauren.