36 hours in Tucson, April 2012

Grampa turned 104, so of course we are going to visit and say Happy Birthday, even if it is just a short trip! While we are there, we sneak in some extra fun.

Entertainment-concert!
We timed it cleverly to see a number of our relatives in the Southern Arizona Women's Chorus in concert.  The are singing with a high school steel drum band, Jovert.  No seriously.  When I first heard I thought, huh, interesting, I'll check that out.  Turns out it was FABULOUS.  The large collection of steel drums allows an incredibly wide range of sounds that pairs beautifully with voices. Below is the program.

Tourist-drive up Mt. Lemmon
We finally took this opportunity to go up nearby Mt. Lemmon and into Coronado National forest.  The road climbs quickly and you pass from low shrubs to saguaro cactus to scrub to pine forest in 30 minutes-quite the trip!

At the top we ate at the Iron Door restaurant (rightly famous for homemade individual pie) which is right across from the ski lifts.  The lifts even run in the summer for the views-that will have to be next time.

Food
Jax is a restaurant that has links to a family member and was perfect for right after the concert.  Highlights were the fall-off-the-bone beef short ribs (special of the day) and the wine-Hullabaloo from Lodi :)

Sonoran hotdog at El Guero Canelo.  The idea here is to wrap your hotdog in bacon, use a sweet roll, and pile as many goodies on top as you can.  It has made an appearance on the Food Network and is definitely a regional specialty to be tried.