A Tucson Kinda Weekend

What a horrible blogger I am, there's no question. I'm always going to many amazing places and I either forget or just get too comfy and lazy to take pictures for 'many' of you to see. This past weekend we spent part of the week and weekend in Tucson for the holiday. I had a lovely Thanksgiving dinner with Tucson family in a beautiful sagauro cactus-filled desert landscape wonder. I also attended a great wedding in old town Tucson. The church was gorgeous and the little town was great.

But before arriving in old Tucson, we temporarily stopped in Oro Valley to meet more family. We then left down the road to Tucson. As we approached, we could not help but laugh and make fun of the billboard sign we saw on the street corner (and one of the kids took the picture):


Yup, this was the saying of the whole weekend whenever we drove around town. RED MEANS STOP! GREEN MEANS GO!

I made plans to attend a local brewery named Barrio Brewery (they make 12 different beers), but unfortunately, my tight schedule did not allow this. I did manage to snap a picture of the old famous 'Z' Mansion. We attended a wedding at this location as well. It reminds me of the old Phillips Mansion of Pomona (but completely renovated to the max. Here's a shot from the street):


While I won't sit here and tell you all my adventures (Probably because I didn't take pictures and there's too many) I will tell you this. The little downtown area of Tucson we lingered around most of the time, reminds me SO much of Downtown Pomona and Downtown Claremont. I wanted to take pictures of the many Craftsman homes and homes with river rock foundations every time. The bad news, I didn't take pictures of the places I wanted to at all. The good news, as we left Tucson for good, I managed to take very ugly but quick pictures as the wife drove away. These are not the greatest images, nor the correct places I speak of. But strangely enough, I think you get my drift when I mention the similarity (And yes, too much 'fun' the previous few nights led to me being unable to drive this afternoon).

I realized that this is part of a historic district called 'El Presidio':


And here are the few, ugly, rare drive by snaps:






And as a bonus, we managed to have one last meal with some family before we left at El CHARRO restaurant, across the lot from the Z Mansion. Food was pretty decent, a little pricier than I expected. A total of 8 adults and 6 kids, no dessert... $361 including gratuity:


And in the middle of the outside eating area, there stood this cool Mexican Charro hat fountain: