The Housechick Blog

Lately, I’ve had several inquires about downtown Tucson and the real estate there.

In researching the area, I came across the Downtown Tucson website, which is a great resource. 

There’s all kinds of information there, all gathered into one place: schedules for the Rialto Theatre, the Fox Theatre, Club Congress, construction and traffic updates, daily events calendar, as well as the latest news.

Projects to watch on the Downtown Tucson Real Estate Front:

• Hopefully coming soon, The Post Lofts, a Bourn Partners project, is 52 residences in a 6 story building, with ground floor shops and restaurants, located on Congress and Scott. 
• Also hopefully coming soon, 44 Broadway, the former federal district court building.  This should be 30 residences, on floors 2-4, with a rooftop garden area on the top floor and retail space on the ground floor.
• Currently for sale, Dos Pedros Lofts, in historic Barrio Viejo.  These are 2 bed, 2 bath freestanding lofts with private courtyards and garages, in the mid $400ks.

See that mountain in the background on the left hand side?

See those specs of white on that?

Snow.  In Tucson (ish).

The mountains in the background are the Santa Ritas, by the way, one of 5 mountain ranges that surround Tucson.  Santa Ritas are in the Southeast, the Catalinas are North, the Tortolitas are Northwest, the Tucsons are West, and the Rincons are to the East.

The white building in the foreground is the San Xavier del Bac Mission, also called the White Dove of the Desert.  Jesuit missionary Father Kino founded the original mission in 1700, and this structure was built in 1783. 

Someday I’ll head down there and take pictures - it is reputed to be one of the finest examples of mission architecture in the United States, blending Moorish, Byzantine, and late Mexican Renaissance architecture.

In the meantime, you can look through some other folk’s fabulous images of the mission on Flickr, here.

There is an incredible moon out tonight.  It’s a late winter night and there is such a crisp clean cold in the air, you want to inhale deeply and let it touch your face and lungs.  The moon was huge and low and was just peeking through a hole in the black clouds, saying his first hello before heading across the night sky.

Well, it’s winter in Tucson.  You can tell by all the styrofoam cups on the cactus tips.

What, you don’t have cups on your cactus?

The sytrofoam cups protect the delicate growing ends of the cactus, so that they don’t freeze during some of our colder Tucson winter nights.

My closest Fry’s Foods grocery store just finished remodeling, and they have a spectacular produce section now.  As I walked into that section, they had a whole row of fresh chiles, with the vibrant greens and yellows and reds, made my eyes water a bit from the bite in the air the chiles were producing.

Around the corner I spotted nopales:

Nopales are pads of the Prickly Pear cactus.  Note the grocery store provides tongs so you don’t have to pick them up with your bare hands!

I’ve never made nopales, but I’ve eaten it several times.  You’ll find it mixed in with eggs, in soups, or otherwise as part of a filling.  The flavor has been described as a “lemony cross between asparagus and green beans” and “somewhat tart green bean flavor.”

If you don’t prepare it properly, it can be, well, a bit slimy.  That, and they come with cactus spines attached, so removing those can be a bit of a chore, or so I’m told.  You can buy them sliced and canned in the local grocery stores, but you loose a lot of the flavor.

But aren’t they beautiful?  Those are sitting beside chayotes, by the way, a kind of squash.

I was out looking at houses with a Buyer, and one home had a nice big park next door.  My Buyer mused that he would enjoy having a place to play Frisbee with his dog.

Ah - hold on a second there.

The City of Tucson has laws that if your dog is outside of your home, it must be on a leash no more than 6′ in length.  In fact, the Tucson City Council recently contemplated raising the fine from $50 to $100 for the first offense of that law.

The good news is that Tucson has several Dog Parks where your canine buddy can run around off-leash, socialize with the other pups, and play a little Frisbee with you.

Palo Verde Park, 300 S Mann Ave - near Broadway and Kolb on the East side of Tucson.

Northwest Center Off-Leash Dog Park, 2075 N 6th ave, in Central Tucson

McDonald District Off-Leash Area, 4100 N Harrison Road, in Northeast Tucson

Jacobs Dog Park, 3300 N Fairview, in Central Tucson.

Reid Park Off-Leash Area, 900 S Randolph Way in Central Tucson (North of the duck pond)

Christopher Columbus Dog Park, 4600 N Silverbell, in West Tucson

Anamax Off Leash Dog Park, 17501 S Camino de las Quintas, in Sahuarita

Udall Dog Park, 7290 E Tanque Verde, in Northeast Tucson

For us desert-dwellers, when it rains, we celebrate.  We marvel at this odd wet stuff falling from the sky, watch it for hours from safe perches on our patios - and then we drive as if every puddle were 10 inches deep and we could skid off the road at any second.  Not used to driving in rain, are the Tucson dwellers.

The best part about a rain storm passing through town is the way the air smells afterwards.  There’s a crisp, unique scent: the smell of the creosote bushes comes through clearly, mixed with something very clean, like smelling the lack of dust, if that makes any sense.

One of my earliest memories is watching the rain at my Grandparent’s house, out on their patio with my family and a bowl of hot popcorn made on the stovetop in a big kettle.  To this day, the smell of rain makes me crave popcorn made the old-fashioned way.

I was out walking the grounds of a new condo listing today during a break in the rain, and as I passed by this tree (I think it is a white thorn acacia tree), it had this beautiful sweet smell.  This is one of my favorite landscape trees, with the pretty yellow puffs.

This one must still be a young tree, but as it matures, it will make a lovely canopy, full of those yellow blooms.

I’m hosting Thanksgiving at my house this year, so forgive me if posting is light this week.  A Happy Thanksgiving to you all! (both of you).

I do love the Tucson Zoo at Reid Park. Today we took the niece and nephew over to feed the giraffes, which happens every day at 10am, and again at 2pm on weekdays. 

The two females lined up perfectly for me this morning - here’s the one headed, two ended giraffe.

There were a bunch of peacocks hanging around the giraffe enclosure.  I call that one, “The Indignant Peacock.”

The feeding happens in a little part of the enclosure that juts into the main part, so the giraffes surround all three sides and take the pellets from your hand.  Here’s some of the little ones feeding the giraffes.

The polar bear was coy today, so I couldn’t get a good shot, but the elephants were out, and the llama took a bow as we came by. 

If you’ve got family in town (or just like a zoo), the Tucson Zoo is a great place to spend a couple of hours.  Many paths are nicely shaded, and it’s not a huge place, so the walk won’t tire you out.  There are many volunteers scattered about with interesting information about the animals.  Two volunteers today had a baby python and some kind of blue tongued Australian skink out for the kids to see and pet.  Little niece now loves snakes.  Little nephew couldn’t leave without seeing the jaguar.  Giraffes are always my favorite, although the polar bears are nice when they’re out and swimming.

The Zoo Lights are coming soon, from 6-8pm every Thursday through Sunday during December 1 - 23rd.  The plants and enclosure are decorated with lights and twinkle away as you tour the zoo with hot cocoa and even light falling snow.  Each evening has stage entertainment and refreshements, and Santa visits the Zoo on certain nights: December 1-2nd, 6-9th, 13-16th, and 20-23rd.  Admission is free if you bring a new toy for Toys for Tots.  Otherwise, it’s $4 for adults and $2 for children aged 2-14.

Because I don’t routinely travel at the speed of light, time is a nice, clean, linear thing to me.  There’s 24 hours in a day, every day.  My clock’s hands go from one, to two, to three, and so on in a never ending cycle.  This whole spring forward fall back business is just, well, it doesn’t compute. 

You crazy other states can spring and fall all you want, but I’m sticking with Arizona, where we don’t need no stinkin’ daylight saving time.  We like our time simple.  It’s always the same - Mountain Standard Time all year long.

You other states have fun trying to figure out how to change the time in your car.  Oh, and on the VCR (hopefully, your Tivo is smarter).  Oh, and on the microwave, and the oven, and the coffee maker.  And your alarm clocks.  And desk clocks.  And your sprinkler system timer.  Don’t forget to mention the change to your dog so she doesn’t pounce on the bed an hour early wanting her kibble and a trip outside.

This year, at least, you got your hour back that you gave away in March - and without interest, I might add. Will you always be so lucky?

I don’t know if you know this, but Tucson sits in a desert.  The Sonoran Desert, to be precise.  Those of you relocating to Tucson from greener pastures may go through a little water-withdrawl.  But don’t worry - you don’t have to sell your boat before you move here.  We’ve got plenty of lakes for fishing and boating and jet-skiing and whatnot nearby.  Near, meaning anywhere from 45 minutes to 3 hours away. 

Closest to Tucson is Lake Patagonia.  Also here.  There’s no jet-skiing here, but you can camp, picnic, water ski, fish, and hike the area.  Half of the lake is a no-wake area for the fisherpeople.  It gets a little busy in summer months, when water skiing is prohibited on weeekends because of the high traffic on the lake.

Lake Roosevelt is one of the larger lakes in Arizona, and is East of Phoenix.  Created by damming the Salt River, Lake Roosevelt has plenty of recreational activities.

Lake Pleasant is Northwest of Phoenix.  The Lake Pleasant Harbor folks say you can scuba dive there, but I’m not too sure about the quality of that diving!  Lots of other things to do there, however.

There’s also Rose Canyon Lake, San Carlos Lake, Apache Lake, Canyon Lake, Saguaro Lake.   If you’re feeling frisky, you can drive the 3-4 hours to Rocky Point (Puerto Peñasco en Español) down in Mexico and sit on a real beach by a natural body of water.

Just remember to drink lots of water and bring your sunscreen!

Photo via Flickr, by cdphoto