Tuscon Report 1

The free high speed internet in my room is not working yet (I am optimistic it will - we've been having too much fun to make the hotel come fix it yet) - so I am using their free high speed internet computers in the lobby.

They have a nice free breakfast here at my hotel - and I can almost construct a CR-okay breakfast from it. They have scrambled eggs, oranges and orange juice. However, I am allergic to all of these! I've had eggs two mornings in a row and my face is breaking out - so maybe I will skip the free breakfast for the rest of the week and hit the Trader Joes for some vegetable juice and uncured ham. My hotel also supplies little refrigerators in each room and a microwave. All the comforts!

The weather here is amazing - 80 degrees and sunny. There are orange trees outside my door that are full of ripe oranges and orange blossoms and smell heavenly. We went hiking up a canyon yesterday and my ankle did very well. It's still a little stiff, but it seems strong. I did a lot of picking my way around rocks, so it was a good test.

We went to some open houses yesterday, checking out Tucson real estate. Oops - the prices have gone way up here - supposedly 33% last year. While it's considerably less expensive that Washington, D.C - it's not cheap. We talked to the nicest builder yesterday - another Texas escapee. His homes were absolutely gorgeous, with so many decorative touches that were subtle and tasteful. The tile work you can get here is exceptional. It's hard to find that anywhere you don't have Mexican tile workers - they are artisans of the highest calibre.

It seems that most of the houses here have nice views of the mountains - at least houses in the North side of the city. Many of the houses have big saguaro cacti in their yards. These are those classic cacti that you see in U.S. desert scenes - kind of like tall men with two lopsided arms pointed up. I love the desert - always have. The air is so fresh. It gets very hot here in the summer - like 100 degrees for several months. But, in April it is perfect.

I ate okay yesterday. The scrambled egg, 1/2 a banana and 1/2 a waffle with jam for breakfast. Lunch was a "topopo". This seems to be Arizonan for taco salad. The taco salad was very well done- with fresh avocado, lots of lettuce, tomatos, and even radishes. Mine had some beans and grilled chicken breast on it. And of course, I did not eat all the shell. We almost skipped dinner -and we were not hungry at dinner time at all. We watched a movie and then decided we had to eat something. I was only at 850 calories at that point. So we headed out at 8 pm (11 pm east cost time - so really late for us) and bought a sandwich at a Subway - turkey for me with mustard. Subway sandwiches are pretty nice, since they load them up with veggies. It's been a while since I ate one. The Subway site says my sandwich was 280 calories without cheese. I had a slice of cheese on mine - so 380 calories. That makes yesterday 1230 calories - which is good for a day I hiked 4 miles or more up and down a canyon.

I think I will try to do even better today. I am just not interested in straying from CR on this vacation. I feel no need to "break free" for a week. Sometimes I do, but now I do not. We're heading out to the Sonoran Desert Museum, Kitt Peak Observatory and some solar homes. There are some solar houses in downtown Tucson, near where I am, that actually make enough energy that they can send energy back to the power company. They seemed expensive last time I looked at their prices - but perhaps they are not so expensive after all, now that I've looked at the market here.