Lost in the Foothills

Tonight, I got seriously lost in a Tucson neighborhood. I never thought this possible, being that southern Tucson is extremely linear, but head north to the Foothills, and you might as well be in Seville, Spain. For those of you who have never had the pleasure of visiting Seville, let me tell you that it's very easy to get lost there. First of all, there are no street signs, so you have to navigate by landmarks. Secondly, for example, to go south, you first have to go east or west, then turn one direction or another, loop around, go west again, and cross the third street with the white house with the blue fence to find your way south. I've never been so frustrated with navigation in my life as I was in Seville.

And yet... oddly... Tucson appears to be more similar to Spain than first meets the eye! Take the neighborhood below (see attached map of the neighborhood I was jogging in tonight):



My car was parked where you see the red star. You will notice that unlike anywhere else in Tucson, there are no straight roads in the foothills. Many roads are dead-ends, and it's very hilly so you can't see what's coming next. I started out on Camino Arturo, hooked a right on Cotorra, another right on Culebra, a left on Isidoro, a right on Brinca, and a left on Miraval, and then ran into a major four lane road with no sidewalk (clearly it's still Tucson) so had to turn around. The problem was I couldn't remember the name of the street (Brinca) from which I had come. So I just kept going south on Miraval all the way to Calle La Cima before I realized I was seriously lost. And I kept looking for a right turn to get me back to my original parking location, but there is none! So I walked about a mile looking for a street to cut me back to the west, but the map will show that this doesn't exist. Now, in most neighborhoods, all the streets eventually intersect or circle around and get you back pretty easily to your starting spot. It's hard to get lost. But I swear that by the point I hit the southern part of Miraval, I wasn't even sure which way my car was anymore.

Thus, my memories of Seville, Spain and trying to find my hotel for about an hour, walking in a one-mile circumference to nowhere, came back to haunt me. The difference, of course, is that Seville is pretty compact, while Tucson neighborhoods are spread out and enormous (no city blocks here!). So even if you take the risk of turning right somewhere, there's no guarantee that street will link up with the one you want to find, and you will walk for a mile going no where. Not to mention all the Spanish street names in this neighborhood totally confused me, and I couldn't remember if I'd been on Culebra or Cotorra or Cabra... although I got some serious (more than one-hour) walking/running exercise trying to find my way out of Spanish street name hell.

I did view some interesting sites on my walk and learned that there are some really funky cacti to use in desert landscaping. My favorite is most definitely the lavender colored prickly pear cactus. There are also some bizarre birds in Arizona. The first one is this little grouse looking critter that I thought was carrying worms in its mouth until I realized that the little appendage dangling down was actually attached to its face. Here's a picture of the little guy that I pulled from some birdwatcher's website -- actually I've just learned that it's a Gambel's quail:



There are also these dove-looking birds that hang out in groups, and when you run past an area where they're perched, they freak out and start flying all over the place. That in turn, freaked ME out because the flap of their wings sounds EXACTLY like a horse letting air out of its mouth... that brrrrrrrhhhh sound they make. For a minute I actually stopped moving and looked around to see if someone had a horse nearby, but alas, there were none. There were lots of rabbits running around as well. Another oddity was that some woman was singing opera at the top of her lungs in her front garden, but I don't think she saw me. She was actually pretty good...

So all in all, it made an interesting desert sort of adventure. I was a bit panicked when I couldn't find my way out of the maze, and dusk was approaching (ah, no sidewalks OR street lights in Tucson either), but eventually I figured it out. Then I made my way back down to the world of southern Tucson's mini-malls and parking lots and felt a bit depressed again... such a shame that the Western US developed around the car... so many possibilities, such bad urban design. But I digress...