Lisa and I decided that we wanted to plan a little trip for the winter break that involved trains, and cities that we'd never visited before.

We first flew to Phoenix (a city that each of us had in fact been to before) to visit Lisa's friend Trish. We took a tour of the beautiful library in Chandler, AZ where she works, enjoyed some tasty meals, and just relaxed. On Sunday we went on a nice long hike at Superstition Mountain. Lots and lots of giant Saguaro cacti. That's the general theme of our whole stay here in Arizona, actually. Out of our 222 photos, I think at least 150 feature a cactus.

Then on Monday morning we took the shuttle here to Tucson... I like it! The streets feature some nice touches that really appeal to my inner planner: lots of bike lanes, bulb-outs, and cool artsy bike racks. Tucson is pretty flat, and not too terribly spread out (not like Phoenix, anyway), and so it's bike-able. But given that we only had about 48 hours, and that many of the things that we wanted to see were beyond the edge of town, we decided to rent a car instead of bikes.

Upon the recommendation from a couple of friends, we visited the Chicago Music Store, which was conveniently located just a few blocks from the place where we're staying. We wandered through the upper floors, which house a mishmash of random, unlabeled instruments and cases.

Lots of Mexican food... On the first day here in Tucson we popped into a random little place on 4th Ave and had some great fish tacos and a mole burrito (pictured below). Last night for dinner we tried Cafe Poca Cosa downtown. It was a little pretentious - very dim lighting, ultra-chic interior, waiters dressed in black - but the food was tasty. If you're there, hopefully you'll get to sample the awesome tamale pie (though the menu changes twice daily, so good luck). Today we went to South Tucson, the Mexican neighborhood, and hit up Mi Nidito ('My Little Nest'). Lots of beef, few vegetables. The tortilla soup was the highlight.

Speaking of highlights, the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum was outstanding. Part museum, part zoo, and part park, it's a big, beautiful nature preserve in the desert on the western edge of town. Mountain lions! Bears! Raptors! Hummingbirds! Caves! Lots and lots of cacti! Don't miss it.

To close it out today, we went for a nice long hike at Sabino Canyon. In a few hours we board a train for San Antonio. We'll have an Amtrak 'roomette', i.e., a spot on the sleeper car. Should be fun!