Hifalutin Cactus Beauty

Yesterday, Sunday, our friends Jo and Larry drove to Tucson from their RV park in Casa Grande. The object of the visit was to eat, drink, and be merry, so we set to work as soon as they arrived! Tucson has a reported 170 Mexican restaurants within it's 500 square mile city limit, and we've been trying to get to them all this month. Sundays pick for lunch was the original location of Mariscos Chihuahua. There are several locations of this restaurant now, but we chose the original to get some of the ambiance reported in the review columns.

Mariscos Chihuahua, as the name suggests, specializes in Mexican seafood dishes. One of the dishes most favored by us was the shrimp in garlic. Almost a scampi, with lots of garlic and huge shrimp in drawn butter with rice and a lettuce salad was more than could be eaten at one sitting. A dish advertised to be very spicy was the Shrimp Endiabladas. A dozen or more large shrimp in a special red chili sauce, with rice and salad were delicious, but only mildly spicy! I was glad that there was some Habanero sauce on the table!

After lunch we drove to Saguaro National Park West, where we drove the Bajada Loop Trail, a mostly gravel road through a huge variety of cactus in the height of bloom. The park is a tremendous area for Saguaro, Cholla, and Ocotillo cactus.

Ocotillo, with Saguaro in the background:

Cholla, two varieties:

And a miniature barrel cactus group tucked in under a Cholla:

Jo and Donna walked out into the desert to photograph a particularly beautiful yellow cactus flower, but when they heard a rattling in the bushes, they exited the area. Quickly. Stage Right. No pic, but at least Jo seemed to enjoy the experience!

It's hard to see, but the Saguaro effectively cover the hills. Some are tall, some are short, but it's awesome to see them all.

Today, Monday, after a morning walk with Sasha, it was off to the tire shop to investigate what appeared to be a nail in one of Gus's tires. Turned out to be a large but short legged staple that was removed with no damage. Then a trip to the carwash after yesterdays off road trip. There are almost as many car washes in Tucson as there are Mexican restaurants, so the competition if fierce. Today I visited the Octopus Carwash on Valencia Rd, just a couple of miles from home and received excellent service on a hand dry $3.00 carwash! Exterior only, of course, but what a deal! Gus is shining like new again!

Our mission this afternoon was to visit the Hifalutin Steakhouse with Ted and Phyllis.

Done in a cowboy motif, with the servers wearing Wranglers and Cowboy hats, it was a great place to eat.  As soon as you walk in, the smell of woodsmoke and well oiled leather takes you to the old west. The furniture is all made of leather and wood, and the food was delicious. A steak, beef stroganoff, Mexican shrimp and Chicken Tortellini was more than we could eat. See a pattern here?

After lunch, we enjoyed coffee and dessert with Ted and Phyllis at their very nice Newmar Kountry Star motorhome. The weather was wonderful, so we sat outside until well after dark.

This will be the last time this trip that we get to spend some quality time with them, but we will be in touch as we all travel around our great country!