A Spanish Colonial Garrison In Arizona

Once a stop on the Camino Real (Royal Highway) to Spanish California, Tubac was established as a presidio in 1752, the first in Arizona.  It was attacked by Apaches so often, the Sonoran Mexicans gave up and moved away.  The remains of the Presidio are preserved in the State Historical Park, but today it is a haven for artists, both Indian and Mexican and is about 50-some miles southwest of Tucson ... and totally worth the drive!!

We only saw a small part of the town as we walked around the narrow dirt streets, so we'll go back next week.  Although you can't see much of this adobe home, it is the only two story adobe structure from the Mexican border to Tucson.  It's an amazing setup, complete with old log fences and is still occupied.  One of the salesgirls said the temperature rises to 110 in the summer, but I bet this adobe stays cool as a cucumber!!

The smaller adobe building in front was probably the original house.  Now it holds some beautiful Talavera pottery.  The inside of this house is awesome, cool in the afternoon sun with room after room.  I could live in this compound!!  

There's so many things in this building, it took us over an hour to check it out.  I'm sure most, if not all of it comes from Mexico, but the prices were the same and in some cases better than we saw in Algodones!!  

I could have spent hours checking out all the pottery.  I get in trouble trying to pick just ONE!!  Patty was very patient as I went back to every room a couple of times!!  I picked up two small flower pots with beautiful painted designs for $11.  I couldn't even get one plain pot for that in California!!

At one of the trading posts, we found several Tommy Singer Navajo pieces and these found their way into my purse at a bargain price.  There was lots of nice turquoise jewelry here, as well as some of the light Dry Creek turquoise stones, in case you are interested.

 Tin luminaries were a good bargain too .... they'll go on my fireplace.

After a great tuna sandwich-and-chips lunch at The Goods (it really was excellent), we stopped at one of the main Talavera Pottery shops.  The most amazing pieces were the Day-Of-The-Dead statues, some three feet tall.  Trouble is, I was so fascinated with everything in the store, and there was SO much to see that I completely forgot to take pictures.  DARN!!!  No worries, when we go back next time, I'll get more images.  These canisters are the same size as what I purchased ...  but NOT the same design.  Cute Day-Of-The-Dead kitties, but they won't match my decor!!

This is one of mine!  It's beautiful and will be a nice addition to my Spanish kitchen.  Believe it or not, these three pieces ... standard canister sizes ... were only $45.00 TOTAL.   Where I come from, just the SMALL one would have been $45!!!  All of the pieces are wrapped and packed away, so I wasn't able to put the lid on for the picture.  When I'm home and they are all unpacked, I'll post another one ... they're gorgeous!!  By the way, all of the Talavera we saw was lead-free.  I wonder if there's any way to test that?

I really wanted this guy too, but didn't want to pack him around.   In the end, I came away empty handed.  If you really like it ... BUY IT NOW!!  When you come back, it might be gone ... and it was!!!  RATS!!!  Unfortunately, there were no others like it.  I'm mad at myself for not getting it when I had the chance.  Maybe when we return, one of the other stores will have something similar.

Back at the ranch, Arizona provided a beautiful sunset while we ate another great Chef Patty dinner.  Most of the color was hiding behind the mountain, so tonight I'm going to hike to the top and see if I can get something even better.

The best part of the day was when Patty made homemade ice cream for tonight's family dinner.  Did I tell you I'm boycotting Ben & Jerry's because they changed their recipe from Coffee Heath Bar Crunch to Coffee Toffee??   Horrible stuff!!  Well my friend Patty made Coffee Heath Bar Crunch ice cream for dessert tonight ... and I got a taste before she put it in the freezer.  WOWEE!!!  I may just have to dig out MY ice cream machine!!!