What we’ve been eating and drinking

 Sonoita, Arizona: The Copper Brothel Brewery

Sonoita is 15 miles down the road from our base, Patagonia, AZ. 
While we cooked quite a few of our meals in our rental apartment, we enjoyed this one dinner out.

Nice beer!

And very good chile rellenos.

Really a brewery.

Patagonia, Arizona: Gathering Grounds Restaurant

Delicious salads — and diet Coke. But no ice cream.

Barbecue in Rolla, MO. on the first night of our drive west

… with sweet potato fries and Dr Pepper.

A Gastropub in Tucson

Ahi tuna sandwich and wine on the patio.

Scallops, broiled green beans, fingerling potatoes.

The gastropub, called Noble Hops, was a pretty dramatic contrast to the In-N-Out burger where we ate dinner the previous night. We expect to be eating out more as we head East again as we will not have a kitchen. 

All photos © 2022 mae sander.

Birding Again

 Ramsey Canyon Preserve: The Nature Conservancy

A Pygmy Owl.

An Elegant Trogan, seen in the US only in the mountains near Mexico.

 

A Flame-Colored Tanager, unusual at this spot.

 

A Western Tanager.

The endangered Chiricahua Leopard Frog lives in protected
pond environments in the Ramsay Canyon Preserve.

Ash Canyon Bird Sanctuary, Sierra Vista, AZ

Lucifer’s Hummingbird

A hopeful Mexican Jay

Scott’s Oriole.

Bullock’s Oriole

Little bird at the drinking fountain.

Blog post © 2022 mae sander

Patagonia: Population 859

Patagonia has one or two coffee places.
Sgt Pecker's sign is neat, but it doesn't look very inviting.

Patagonia, Arizona, is very small and full of entertaining street art -- much more than I've presented here. Its most famous attraction is the Paton Center for Hummingbirds, which I have already written about. Another birding site is Patagonia Lake, where we spent several hours this morning, and there are several other birding hotspots. It's only around 20 miles to the large city of Nogales, AZ, but the town seems incredibly remote.

The one small food market has this very intriguing sign with a poem and a large image.
The market is small, but we did buy a carton of ice cream there.

At the one and only gas station the very old pumps offer gas for $5.10/gallon.
I wonder what the sign means. The station is open from 8 AM to 4 PM.
We chose to fill up down in the valley where gas was only $4.49.

The door of the gas station.

Boxes for a local paper, the Patagonia Regional Times, are very colorfully decorated, but no copies of the news seem to be available in them. You could read the current issue online, though.

Patagonia has at least two Little Free Libraries -- within around a block of each other. They too are elaborately decorated!

The side of the art center has mosaic tile, and hand made tiles on the window sills as well.

One of the restaurants in town has a decorated
menu-display box.

We had a nice salad at Gathering Grounds Espresso Bar, Deli & Ice Cream.
The salad was good, but they didn’t have any ice cream at all.
That’s why we bought ice cream at the little market.

Patagonia is a very relaxing place and we are enjoying our time here. Blog post © 2022 mae sander.

At Patagonia Lake … water sports and water birds.

A Cinnamon Teal at the lake.

Reading on Vacation

As we travel, I sometimes have time to read, as long as I pick an easy book. It's nice that my Kindle app means I don't have to carry a huge stack of real books! My selections are by authors whose works I've read before. Here they are, with only very brief comments -- I am on vacation.

"My Evil Mother"
This very short story reminded me of some of
Margaret Atwood's early novels.

One more in the series about Rei Shimura,
the Japanese-American amateur detective.
Sujata Massey is a fun author.

Set in Washington, DC, and published around 15 years ago, The Pearl Diver is all about the challenges of restaurant workers and how they live and work, as well as a pretty good mystery. I liked the references to real restaurants in DC -- for example, 

“There’s a small-plates trend in better restaurants,” Marshall said. “In this neighborhood alone, Zaytinya and Jaleo have made their names because of tapas-style menus. Kaiseki is just a Japanese version.” (p. 20). 

Published just in time for me to read it in the Southwest.
One more book about the everlasting Navajo detectives
Jim Chee and Bernie Manuelito. Suspenseful! 
Interesting because it's set during the pandemic.

A very serious book, hard to read. 

Edmund deWaal has captured the spirit of the times of his extended family a few generations ago: how their riches, exquisite taste, and contributions to French society couldn't save them from Auschwitz. I can't imagine why I chose this as vacation reading! 

Blog post © 2022 mae sander.

Patagonia

The Paton Center for Hummingbirds 

Blog post and all photos © 2022 mae sander