2015 Escapade in Tucson, Picacho Peak State Park and heading home!

We returned to Tucson to attend the 2015 Escapees RV Club Escapade from March 8-13 again at the Pima County Fairgrounds.  Escapade this year was huge with close to 1000 RVs, good entertainment three nights, nearly a hundred educational seminars, a large RV show from a top dealer with many dozens of RVs available for inspection, a Pet  Parade, a chili contest, inside market area for vendors, the ROW for all the Escapee chapters to have a table to tell new members about their chapter and activities and much more.  Although there are 400 electrical RV spaces at the Fairgrounds, we like many others wound up in the huge boondocking area but we were at least lucky that we came early and were parked in the first row of boondocking (means no hookups—you run on your batteries, your generator or solar power!) so the walk to all the halls and events was relatively close.

We attended a lot of seminars and packed in a little more knowledge, primarily in the technology area, with our favorite instructors, Chris & Jim from Geeks on Tour.  We ran into a lot of people we knew from past Escapades and many members of Chapter 8, the Mexican Connection. 

Attendance at our "Escape to Mexico" seminar

On Wednesday afternoon, we taught our seminar called “Escape to Mexico” to the largest audience yet, well over 100 people, and many stayed after with questions about Chapter 8 and our 2016 Rally to Puerto Peñasco, Sonora, aka “Rocky Point.” Our Chapter 8 "Fiesta" followed:chips & salsa!

We had an early meeting Thursday morning for Chapter officers then we headed out to start home.  We stopped briefly at the DeGrazia Gallery in the Sun once more then headed for the I-10 Freeway.

Our planned stop for the night, Picacho Peak State Park, is about 45 miles north of downtown Tucson.   

This dramatic high pointed peak sticks up 1500 feet above the desert floor and 3374' above sea level and has been a landmark for explorers since prehistoric times. Spanish Lieutenant Colonel Juan Bautista de Anza led the famous DeAnza Expedition from Tubac Presidio to San Francisco in 1775 that passed by Picacho Peak and duly recorded it.  The Mormon Battalion came through in 1849 and 49ers headed to California for the Gold Rush passed in 1849.

It was the site of the largest Civil War battle, the Battle of Picacho Pass, fought in Arizona on April 15, 1862 when a California Union cavalry patrol clashed with Confederate scouts from Texas resulting in 3 deaths.  In March each year, there are Civil War reenactments in the Park.

The park opened to the public on Memorial Day 1968 and has become very popular!  It is certainly one of our favorite places!  It now consists of 3747 acres of beautiful unspoiled Sonoran Desert landscape.   Picacho Peak is famous for its wildflower display in mid-March and April each year.  Here are some of the plants and cactus varieties we saw in a good hike around the park.

Baby Blue eyes, Desert Mallow and Penstemon

Saguaros come in the strangest formations--the small hedgehog cactus (bottom) was already in bloom

The Park facilities are very nice with an attractive entry station and Visitor Center with displays and a gift shop.  The campground has 85 sites all with 30 amp electric service, very unusual for state parks. Fresh water and a dump station are centrally located near the entrance.  There are 2 large restroom buildings, both with free hot showers!  The fee is $25 per night and was almost completely filled when we arrived and usually fills up on weekends.   Free wifi also to all sites!  There are several group campgrounds and day use areas for picnics with a shelter.  There are 5 different hiking trails from 0.2 mile to 2 miles and ranging from easy to very difficult to climb the trails to the top of the mountain!

The wildlife and bird list here is very typical of the Sonoran desert  including 3 species of rattlesnakes!   Lots of mammals all to way to rare sightings of mountain lion.  And many birds singing near the campground including a Costa's hummingbird that teased us to come closer!  Picacho Peak is a great place to spend a night or a week.  It closes down during the summer because of extreme hot temperatures.

We had a beautiful typical Arizona red sunset at night--- Cacti and a setting sun!

So the morning of March 13, (yikes, Friday the 13^th!!) we set off in earnest to head back home and made it to an RV Park in El Cajon, CA close to San Diego. Then we took 350 miles of so a day and we'll be in Portland on 3/17, go shopping, visit Roland and family, do some maintenance on our RV at the McCoy Freightliner Sprinter service center in Portland then home!    It's been a great 7+ week journey with about 5100 miles racked up along the way!  We hope you enjoyed coming along with us!

DeGrazia Gallery in the Sun, Tucson

As soon as you get out of your vehicle in the DeGrazia Gallery in the Sun parking lot, you'll see that this is no ordinary artist's gallery!    Rather it's a composite of the desert landscapes of Southern Arizona and Sonora including an impressive adobe chapel reminiscent of the mission churches of Padre Kino, ramadas for shady contemplation, decorative arched pathways, clusters of cactus gardens and other native desert trees and vegetation, the mine shaft entry to the actual gallery and embedded DeGrazia art in many different media everywhere on a gorgeous ten acre parcel in Tucson's Santa Catalina Mountain foothillsl!

We started our visit at the Chapel, which Arizona artist Ted DeGrazia built by hand in 1953 and called the “Mission in the Sun.”   The Chapel was built in honor of Padre Eusebio Francsico Kino, the famous Jesuit who built a chain of mission churches in northern Sonora and southern Arizona in the late 17^th Century and early 18^th Century and is dedicated to Our Lady of Guadalupe, the patron saint of Mexico. 

The centerpiece In the front of the chapel is the dramatic stepped adobe altar with a central large painted image of Our Lady of Guadalupe.  There are hundreds of photographs, drawings and articles related to cures and miracles attributed to Our Lady of Guadalupe around the altar. There are also two smaller rooms with altars at the rear of the Chapel.

The adobe walls are filled with many colorful DeGrazia painted images of flying angels, groups of angels, angels with trumpets, angels playing violin, Padre Kino on horseback, a Yaqui deer dancer, birds, children holding candles, twinkling stars, desert plants and much more. 

The entire right wall is devoted to a large group of Indian people bringing baskets of flowers to the chapel.   The center length of the chapel has an open roof.

 

A blue painted tablet tells the story of Juan Diego and the first appearance of Our Lady of Guadalupe near Mexico City in 1531.
 

People come from all over just to visit the Chapel and its exquisite architecture and beautifully painted decoration!  

Moving along to the large adobe gallery building, entry is by heavy metal double doors framed to appear like the entrance to a mine.  DeGrazia was born in 1909 in Morenci, Arizona, a copper mining town and his father worked in the mine, so the artist's early days are reflected in this entrance.  

Just inside on the left is a room with musical instruments as again, DeGrazia was also a musician and appreciated the connection between art, color and music.  His Gallery in the Sun was opened to the public in 1965.   DeGrazia always said that he built the Gallery in the Sun so that his paintings “would feel good inside!”  Isn't that a unique perspective?

"Horseback" (Padre Kino)

DeGrazia loved the color and movement of bullfights

The Gallery in the Sun is constructed so you walk through a series of gallery rooms, containing six permanent collections, each in its own room and several rotating exhibits.  Each collection is dedicated to one of DeGrazia's most prolific interests and painting subjects.  Most rooms also hold a showcase or other display of many of DeGrazia's personal collection of artifacts, especially minerals.  Here are the subjects of the Permanent Collection gallery spaces in order of display:  Padre Kino, Cabeza de Vaca, Papago Indians, Retrospective, Yaqui Easter and Bullfight.   We show a few of our favorites here.

On the right a self portrait of the early '80's

Near the end of the Gallery rooms, there is a door to the outside garden, which is well worth walking through.  The garden is a courtyard surrounded by the Gallery buildings and offices.  It is very beautifully landscaped and expertly maintained with many cactuses, succulents, trees and native plants, some flowering. There are many found objects of DeGrazia, including a French horn, heads of shovels, glass objects and much more.  A nearly lifesize Yaqui deer dancer is the centerpiece of a pond, with many koi swimming around

There is a side room off one of the last galleries with a large television playing movies of DeGrazia discussing his beginnings, the Gallery in the Sun, the desert landscape, his love of the Missions and Padre Kino,  and his close attachment to the local Tohono O'odham, Yaqui, Seri and other Indian peoples. In this room, there are large photographs of DeGrazia working on various art projects mounted on his painting easels. Each time we visit, we feel that he is telling us personal stories about his own life and why he paints certain subjects.  We did meet him once in the late 1970s and acquired one of his ceramics.  We feel a personal connection with him, unlike any other artist. 

Before Ted DeGrazia passed away in 1982 at age 73, he formed the DeGrazia Foundation to hold his collection of 15,000 DeGrazia originals, to maintain the Gallery in the Sun property in perpetuity and to continue his policy of free admission to the grounds.  The Gallery in the Sun complex was added to the National Register of Historic Places in Fall 2006.   Amazingly, photography is allowed in the Gallery with the use of flash prohibited.  That is how we are able to show you on this blog post a number of DeGrazia paintings that we particularly love!

We returned to the Gallery in the Sun a second time on the day we left Tucson to start home as we wanted to see the Chapel again and discovered that we missed more painted art.  We saw more birds, probably doves or swallows, as well as a roadrunner.  We also saw a clown on the wall—context unknown, an angel playing violin, Christ on the cross, children with balloons, an Indian playing a violin and another playing a flute and drum and finally, a group of Indians watching a cock fight!

We also knew that Ted was buried on the property and wanted to see his grave, and that of his wife Miriam, who died in 2002.

Under the tree on Miriam's grave are lots of angels---the stone pyramid is Ted's Eternal Christmas Tree

Finally, after looking at the Gallery's catalog of prints, we wanted to buy San Xavier Mission Fiesta and Children Dancing around a Saguaro to add to our home art collection.  Needless to say, these are good reproduction prints, not originals!  Even small originals can cost $5000 and much more!  Just wished I'd bought a few originals in the 80s!!

To us, DeGrazia is the quintessential Southwest artist!  Now, 32 years after DeGrazia's death, streams of visitors come 7 days a week to get acquainted with the man through his art and architecture.  Most, like us, leave amazed and delighted!  This year, 2015, is the 50^th Anniversary of the Gallery in the Sun complex!  When in Tucson, be sure to stop by and have your own DeGrazia experience!

 

USA--Tumacácori NHP, ASARCO Mission Mine Tour, Mission San Xavier del Bac

We left Nogales at 12:35 PM on Wednesday, 3/4/15 and drove north on I-19 about 16 miles to Tumacácori National Historic Park, (Tomb-a-cock-or-ee) which preserves an old Spanish mission church, San Cayetano de Tumacácori, founded in 1691 by Padre Eusebio Francisco Kino, known as the “Padre on Horseback.”  The original mission location was moved from the east banks of the Santa Cruz River to the west bank of the river in 1751 after devastating Indian attacks and the name was changed to San José de Tumacácori.   The Presidio of Tubac was established in 1752, about 10 miles north, with 50 Spanish soldiers to protect the area from Indian raids.

Tumacácori never had a resident priest since it was a visita of Mission San Gabriel de Guevavi, 12 miles away.  A small adobe Jesuit church was erected at Tumacácor in 1757 on a nearby site and survived for 65 years.  International politics were about to raise its ugly head when in 1767 the Spanish King expelled the Jesuits from all Spanish territories and replaced them with the Franciscan order.  In 1771, Tumacácori became mission headquarters and gained a resident priest for the first time.  The church property was walled-in, adobe dwellings were built for the Indians and the church was refurbished with new decoration in and out. In 1787, Guevavi and another visita, Calabasas, were abandoned due to Indian attacks and dispersal of its Indian converts. 

About 1800 Fray Narciso Gutierrez, a Franciscan, began construction of the present larger church, built and decorated like the larger church of San Xavier del Bac close to Tucson.  In the next years, funds ran out and construction stopped but Indian attacks continued, and in 1801, an Apache attack wiped out most of Tumacácori's livestock.  The Mexican War of Independence from Spain was won in 1821 and church construction resumed, but Spain cut off all funds and work stopped again.  Final phases of construction resumed in 1823, but in 1828, Mexico deported all Spanish-born residents leaving only Mexican priests, who were already scarce.  Tumacácori once again was a visita, with no resident priest!

Next political crisis was in 1848 during the Mexican-American War plus stepped up Apache attacks and a very hard winter caused the Tubac Presidio and Tumacácori to be abandoned 157 years after Padre Kino founded the Mission.  In 1853, the Gadsden Purchase put Tumacácori inside the United States border.  In 1908 Tumacácori National Monument was created by Congress to preserve this historic site including the legacy of Padre Kino!   In 1990 Congress added the closely related, but unfortunately very deteriorated, sites of Guevavi and Calabasas to create Tumacácori National Historic Park.  The remains of the Tubac Presidio are protected as Tubac Presidio State Historic Park by the State of Arizona.  We were fortunate to take an excellent free guided tour of the Tumacácori church, outbuildings and the newly restored orchard!  Visiting takes you back through almost 325 years of Spanish borderlands history!

A little bit of the colorful murals is still visible

In the Museum was a small diorama how the church looked in the 18th century

Tubac today has turned into art colony of sorts with many shops, cafes and of course, the state park.

We spent a pleasant night at the Mountain View RV Ranch in Amado, a few miles north of Tubac.

The goal was to get an early start the next morning so we could be on the 9AM first tour of the day at the ASARCO Mineral Discovery Center in Sahuarita.  The tour of the ASARCO Mission Mine, one of the largest open pit copper mines in Arizona, was excellent with a terrific guide!  It started with a bus ride up to a high overlook of the gigantic open pit copper mine, where we could watch the drills, shovels loading the huge haul trucks that bring the ore to the mill in 320 ton truck loads!!

After 15 minutes at the pit, the bus took us to the mill where we could see the crushers, ball mills and wet grinding mills that grind up the raw ore that's only 0.4% copper and concentrate it by flotation to a powder consistency that is 25-30% copper!  The two huge mill facilities here process a total of about 54,000 tons a day!

Left bottom: flotation process--mixed with pine oill bubbles seem to light up

This concentrate is trucked to ASARCO's Hayden refinery where it becomes large 99.9% copper anodes!  65% of all the copper produced in the United States comes from Arizona.   In addition to copper, this mine also produces enough gold and silver to pay its huge electric bill!  This Mission mine began operations in 1961 and is named after nearby Mission San Xavier del Bac, the most famous and best preserved of all the Kino missions.  The Mission mine facility provides the only public mine tours in Arizona and sees about 20,000 visitors per year.

At the entrance to the parking lot we saw this huge cristate saguaro cactus.

Mission San Xavier del Bac

 After leaving the mine, we drove north about 9 miles to Mission San Xavier del Bac, near Tucson.  This mission was founded by Padre Eusebio Francisco Kino in 1692 at the large Pima Indian village of Bac, now called Wa:k. As usual, it started with a small adobe chapel but since a resident priest was not available, it was only visited occasionally.  The foundations for a larger church were laid by Padre Kino in 1700, but lay vacant for a decade because of the death and sickness of assigned padres and perhaps was never finished. It's a sad fact that almost all of the original churches that Padre Kino personally planned and built were gone in 25 years or less, due to Indian raids and natural disasters such as earthquakes and floods.  In 1751, the Pima Revolt resulted in the burning and pillaging of the church.  Another adobe church was built in 1756, and its foundations are still visible 40 yards to the west of the present church.  After the Jesuits padres were exiled and the Spanish Franciscans took charge in 1768, San Xavier became the headquarters for Fray Francisco Garces and later Fray Juan Bautista Velderrain. 

In 1783 Padre Velderrain began building the current Church with money borrowed from a Sonoran rancher, and construction was completed in 1797.  The architect was Ignacio Gaona, who also designed the Church at Caborca, Sonora.  The workers were a large group of the O'odham or Pima Indians.  The Church was built with fired adobe in the form of a cross with the interior over eighty feet high! With Mexican Independence in 1821, San Xavier became Mexican, not Spanish. The last resident Franciscan left in 1837.  With the Gadsden Purchase of 1854, San Xavier became a part of the United States!  In 1859, the Diocese of Santa Fe, New Mexico took charge and began repairs to the Mission.  In 1866, the Diocese of Tucson was formed and San Xavier became part of the new diocese.  Regular Mass began again.  The Mission School opened in 1872 with the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet teaching. From 1940 to the present, the Franciscan Sisters of Christian Charity teach at the K-8 school and reside in the Convent.   A violent earthquake in 1877 damaged walls and structures of the Mission. The Franciscan friars returned to San Xavier in 1913.

In 1905, Tucson Bishop Granjon took a personal interest and began major repairs to stabilize all the structures of San Xavier.  Then in 1939, lightning struck the west tower of the church requiring more repair.  More recently, in 1953 the Mission facade was restored and then in 1963, San Xavier was designated a National Historic Landmark. 

An organization that we personally support, Patronato San Xavier, was formed in 1967 to preserve the structures of San Xavier, both interior and exterior. Patronato funded an extensive 5 year interior restoration and conservation project that brought highly skilled international conservators to the Mission to restore the interior paintings, the retablo, saints and angels and the interior decorative painting on the walls.  A masterful restoration was accomplished to international acclaim. The next project starting very soon will be the restoration of the east tower of the Church.  
Today, Mission San Xavier del Bac is considered the finest example of Spanish Colonial architecture in the United States.  

The interior is absolutely glorious with gold and silver leaf, wonderful warm colors, and over 50 saints in niches around the church.  A reclining San Francisco Xavier figure in the west transept draws many pilgrims to the Mission and many prayers for relief from diseases and accidents have been acknowledged. 

The east transept contains a beautiful shrine to Mary, mother of Jesus and the patron saint of Mexico, Our Lady of Guadalupe.  Hundreds of angels are everywhere in the Church.  The altar is a masterpiece of Mexican baroque and Churrigueresque design. It is thought that most artwork in the Mission was created in the church workshops of Querétaro, Mexico and brought to the Mission on the backs of donkeys! 

There is an excellent Mission Museum, a 20 minute history video and a very complete gift shop which even sells O'odham baskets and other crafts. San Xavier is still a working Catholic parish church with daily Masses and other services for its O'odham parishioners. 

  
Each year, over 200,000 visitors drive nine miles from Downtown Tucson to the Tohono O'odham Reservation to visit Mission San Xavier del Bac!   The Mission is an inspiring place to visit and to study the amazingly beautiful craftsmanship lavished on this Church, which is still being carefully preserved for the future! 

*all timeline facts from the official San Xavier website