A few years ago, in the month of April, we had the chance to tour Arizona for a week. We flew into Phoenix and spent 3 days there including the day we spent for a trip to Tucson. Then we moved on to Flagstaff and Williams and spent 2 nights at each of these places to see northern Arizona including the Grand Canyon.

This article is about our sightseeing in Phoenix and Tucson. Unfortunately, most of our memories of the Arizona tour was captured on a video camea. So I don't have many still pictures to share with you.

We liked the city of Phoenix. It is pretty big but not very congested, and it is clean and quite beautiful. There are some posh areas both inside proper Phoenix and in the outskirts. We did visit Scottsdale and Tempe. What we liked most in Phoenix are the Desert Botanical Garden and the Phoenix zoo. I have a few still pictures of these two attractions. Scottsdale is a very sophisticated town known for its innumerable art galleries and boutique shops. We liked Scottsdale a lot. In April we found very pleasant weather in Phoenix. The temperature was in the 80's and it was dry.

On our second day in Arizona, we took a day trip to Tucson which is about 116 miles south of Phoenix. Tucson is located inside the Sonora desert and we drove though the desert area along interstate route 10. We enjoyed the desert landscape - dry, flat ground covered with thorny bushes, and barren hillocks in the distance. I remember we drove past an ostrich farm on the way. That was something we never saw before or after!

Tucson is a relatively small city. The area is famous for Saguaro (pronouned 'sooaro') cactuses. On the east and west side of the city there are two National Parks called Saguaro National Monument. The other two important attractions in Tucson are the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum and the Colossal Cave. The Desert Museum is about 14 miles west of Tucson (in one of the Saguaro Parks) and the cave is about 20 miles southeast of Tucson (beyond the other Saguaro Park). The museum houses huge number of live desert animals and plants in their natural habitats besides other exhibits.

Now onto the still photos I have from this trip. I hope you will get an idea from these photos and this writing, if you have not been to these places.

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Stamp Collecting - Doing it for enjoyment, not for profit (Trying to save this dying hobby.) http://bestnetguru.com/stampcollecting/

ABC's of Computing (For beginners of any age, especially seniors.) http://bestnetguru.com/abcofcomputing/

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