This urban walk was a continuation from last weekend, adding another 2.4 miles I've completed on the Chuck Huckelberry trail around Tucson. I had company with Steve and his dog Trace this time.
Steve came by early to patch my tire, then we drove into town to have a new tire I had put on at D&M Tires. The nail had pierced the sidewall and Dave (one of the owners) said the tire was not salvageable. The new tire was put on rather quickly. When we got done walking around the block, the car was ready for pick-up. I paid my $20 and we were able to continue on to Tucson, where we had planned on walking part of the Loop and then having beer afterward.
I parked on the west bank of the Santa Cruz river and on the north side of Congress Avenue, next to the Garden of Gethsemane Felix Lucero Park. (Lucero was a World War I veteran and artist-sculptor who dedicated his life to creating religious statues) This is a pleasant little garden sadly taken over by homeless people, and we saw homeless and their trash all throughout this walk.
The water in the wash, the water that refreshed Zeke and Hansel last week, quickly dried out as we walked north and was completely dry by the time we got to St Mary's Street. We were walking on the west bank as cyclists sped on by, so we stayed close to the metal fence to get out of the cyclists' way, then went into the wash for the dogs to run but that proved to be a sad act as the trash that we saw from the path was now much closer to us and stunk. The rocks made it harder to walk on as well, making the decision to let the dogs off leash here a not-very-good idea.
And Trace made sure he took that stink with him when he rolled in something smelly. That stink never went away during this walk.
We got back on the path at the next ramp back up on the east side of the wash. We were now on the homeless side, as every rest area along this stretch was taken over by homeless encampments and their trash. These weren't just encampments, though; some resembled dumps with large mounds of decomposing trash, clothes, cardboard and filthy furniture.
To add to the ugliness, the traffic from I-10 was just to our east and the sounds of tractor-trailers speeding by never left us. We probably should have walked on the west bank at this point, where far fewer encampments were visible.
We took a break near the 1912 Brewery just south of Grant Street, sitting on two large boulders under willowy trees to let the dogs drink and chat a bit. I knew that the brewery was closed today --many of Tucson's breweries are--but it would have been nice to sit inside and have one of 1912's wit biers. It's a small brewery with a dog-friendly taproom. Perhaps we can do that on our next Loop walk, when we continue the walk near the brewery and walk north to Silverbell Golf course, a distance of 3.2 miles one way.
We walked back to the car from the brewery, staying on the east side for the entire duration. A homeless man and his dog was taking over the one pool of water near the end, but by then we were both hungry and looking for someplace good to eat.
Steve mentioned Rocco's Chicago pizza, and I was for that, but couldn't get my phone to work when I needed it. We settled for Vietnamese at Miss Saigon off Campbell Avenue, where I had a tasty portion of chicken lo mein.
After our filling meal we stopped by MotoSonora. The biergarten was busy! We sat near the RuffZone where the dogs could play with other dogs. They seemed to have fun, although at first Hansel wanted to be close to me instead of near other dogs, but the more dogs that came by, the more he relaxed. I had a Mexican Lager and later a Cafe Racer brown ale. Both were tasty. This is one brewery I will be coming back to a lot to try their varied beers.
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