Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Rain began around 4:00 am. Stopped by 6:30 but was cool and overcast nearly all day. This morning Doug & Phyllis went their way shopping and Gord and I went to an Apple computer store to get help with our external hard drive. It was on the other side of Tucson in the Foothills district. Took us about 40 minutes to get to it. It was in an outdoor mall like nothing I had ever seen. There were walkways and planters and benches and gardens. Wow! Of course, you can imagine the quality of the shops. PLUSH PLUSH PLUSH!!! We couldn't afford to even walk in the door of any of the shops.

The girl, Darryl, which helped us at the Apple Store was very good. From there we headed back to camp, but saw Lansdell's jeep at Tiny's, a restaurant not far from camp, so we whipped in there and had lunch. A rather large juicy burger, fries or coleslaw

for $4.00. Can't beat that. From there we went to a service station and fueled the truck and filled the water barrel.

Then the four of us went to the San Xavier Mission. The Mission was founded as a Catholic mission by Father Eusebio Kino in 1692. The current church dates from the late 1700's, when Arizona was part of New Spain. In 1783 Franciscan missionary Fr. Juan Bautista Verderrain was able to begin construction on the present church. The architect was Ignacio Gaona and he used a large workforce of O'odham Indians.

Following Mexican independence in 1821, San Xavier became part of Mexico. With the Gadsden Purchase of 1854, the Mission joined the US. In 1866 regular services were held again. It is still an operating Catholic church. Constructed of low-fire clay brick, stone and lime mortar, the entire structure is roofed with masonry vaults, making it unique among Spanish Colonial buildings within the US. The church has had it's share of troubles. In 1887 an earthquake knocked down the mortuary walls and damaged parts of the church. Extensive repairs began in 1905. The next round of restoration followed after a 1939 lightning strike hit the West Tower lantern. There is continuous restoration work going on today. If you look closely to the first picture you can see how white the left side of the church is compared to the right. That is because in 1989 the restoration team began removing the earlier coating of cement plaster, repairing the historic brick beneath, and re-finishing the exterior surface with a traditional lime plaster. This is a far too busy of a place for me to go to church in. All I would be doing is looking around at the art work and the statues. Actually, I think the statues are sort of creepy.

Here are pictures of four different cacti on the church grounds. The orange and pink are flowers. The yellow is the cactus fruit. It will have red flowers soon. I think the first on is a Claret Cup Cactus and the second one is Pincushion Cactus. I can't find the other two in my book.

Hope you have enjoyed our tour of the Mission San Xavier.

The last two pictures are of a Joshua Tree along side of Hwy 86 on the west end of Tucson. It is the same tree taken from different directions. Phyllis says that is the nicest Joshua she has seen. It began raining again just as we arrived home. Gord and Doug worked to fill our water tanks and get things loaded because plans are that we are leaving here in the morning.