A walk around a colorful and arty Tucson neighborhood

As I wrote in a previous post, the neighborhood where I now live has a bit of a reputation for being “arty”. My impression when I first looked around it was “apartment district-Tucson style”. There are a lot of older, multifamily homes but instead of being 2 or 3 stories tall, the “apartments” are single story, and many are attached. And many of the single family residences in this area are very colorful and surrounded by long-established native plant gardens.

To help reinforce the arty image, this neighborhood has its own castle about a block from my home. I walk by the castle/home frequently and admire the lions standing guard by the mailbox.

Now that we are under a Stay-At-Home order, I decided to start regular healthy walks around the neighborhood to see what else there is to admire, beside the castle and its big lions. And here is what I saw on Monday March 30th, 2020, the day the Stay-at-Home order was issued by Mayor Regina Romero. Romero’s order is far stricter and was published earlier than the one announced by the Arizona governor. The Tucson Stay-at-Home order will be enforced by the police.

Tucson is in the Sonoran desert, but with both winter rain and the summer monsoon, it is surprisingly verdant. Three native plants that thrive everywhere are the Ocotillo (Fouquieria splendens), which most of the year looks like dried sticks, the Prickly Pear (Opuntia) which loves to find shelter under other plants wherever possible and Creosote (Larrea tridentata) which covers vast tracks of the undeveloped land across the Mojave and Sonoran deserts like a short forest.

Not all homes in the area are old brick ones. This modern home of sturdy concrete block with a red facade is just two blocks away. The owner appears to have kept the old trees and one prickly pear cactus, but the rest of the landscaping is newish.

And now comes one of my favorites: the storybook home. I think the door and windows are paint only, but I’m not sure. Love the whimsey of it all!

Now, one of the very nicest things about Tucson is that almost everything costs 50% less than in Los Angeles. And because the city has been here since August 20, 1775, it has an excellent cultural life with museums, botanical gardens, a lot of theater, dance, and musical entertainment, plus what seems like many small breweries, as well as a few wineries. I wish I had moved here much earlier.

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