Tucson

Jan 13, 2024

In the middle of all that is happening now, the terrible Israeli/Hamas war, Yemen, the frustrating presidential race – the list could go on forever, we decided to go on a short vacation.

The idea of Getting Away is a funny one. You can go somewhere else, but you can’t get away.

Even so, we talked about a Big Trip somewhere unfamiliar, somewhere very foreign, and decided instead to go someplace easy – one plane ride away, and not all that far. Somewhere that wasn’t too expensive, that wasn’t challenging.

Since I started traveling so many years ago, I’ve gone out of the country. To a place I didn’t know. Younger, travel was a lot simpler in so many ways. I didn’t need much money because I could sleep anywhere. No matter where I went, I packed a tiny overnight bag. Once I traveled to Spain for six months with $300 and three silk kimonos in different lengths to wear separately or together, one pair of sandals, and a small pouch of earrings. I got a job working in a hotel on the beach not far from Barcelona. I had no pills, no walking shoes, no probiotics or vitamins.

Not even sunscreen. I needed nothing, was happy there, and even wrote an entire first draft of a novel, Mango Tango.

Now the story is different.

I think about weather (!!!) and terrain and walking and what I might need that I won’t be able to find. I pack creams and pills and a few lipsticks. And pens. I carry a whole case of pens of various thicknesses and colors and three or four notebooks (how big, how long) and a book or two because I prefer reading actual books (but what book?).

And now too there is the shlep component, something I never thought about much before.

And the question of airplane seats.

Even so, we decided to Go Somewhere we’d never been that was easy and possibly beautiful.

A friend mentioned Tucson..

When I think about Arizona, I think about Barry Goldwater.

We both said no at first. Years ago we’d been to the Grand Canyon, and Flagstaff.

In the end, we flew to Phoenix because it was much cheaper than flying straight to Tucson.

We rented a car and went.

Getting there was a mega shlep. Six am to the airport. Late plane. Etc.

But still we found ourselves in a place that looked like nothing we’d ever seen before – ancient land, ancient landscape, surreal vegetation, bobcats, roadrunners, crevices, canyons, light and sky.

It wasn’t warm. It wasn’t familiar. But the days were all gorgeous in unexpected ways, and we who are urban, well-traveled enough, found ourselves in a smallish Arizona city gaping, exclaiming, and happy.

It’s lucky to be able to travel – to have enough money to Go Somewhere, to be healthy enough and mobile. To take time off from all the rest.

We stayed in an old Hollywood hotel. Many movies had been shot nearby.

One of the best parts of the hotel (it’s gorgeous: Hacienda del Sol) was the seven day a week piano player, an older man named Dennis. He loved the piano, and collected eighty notebooks of music. Every night, he played my favorite song for me. He had six different versions, but I told him I liked Etta James best. That was fine with him.