Doing Double Duty today 2/26 & 27/18

February 27, 2018

Sorry I missed this yesterday. So I am gonna give you a lot of information today.

Yesterday, Monday, we picked up our roving bedroom and moved over to Tucson. We are parked in the backyard of a couple of our oldest friends -- Craig and Jan Rowe. They live in this beautiful area called Marana and they have a beautiful home (which the rent out) and a nice little Casita where they stay most of the time.

Here is the view from our trailer -- which makes it, I suppose, Casita #2 on this property.

And here are a couple of pictures of the "Big House" at Pasos de Ceilo.

Oh, and here is picture of a couple of old army buddies, talking about fishing and hunting.

We have known Jan and Craig for at least 45 years. Lived in the Bay Area near them and now they live in Tucson and we only get to see them once a year. Jan is busy with her Grandson Bradley and daughter Heather. Jan also has a habit of buying properties and fixing them up. This habit keeps both she and Craig busy.

Jan made us a wonderful dinner, we finished a bottle of wine and crashed early in Casita #2.

Tuesday 2/27/18

Jan and Craig were pretty tied up today and it really wasn't our plan to have them entertain us so we had picked out a couple of attractions in the environs that we wanted to see. I signed Russ and I up for a free Tour of the Historic Hacienda De La Canoa down the road apiece in Green Valley. Apparently this ranch was originally owned by the Ortiz Brothers, Tomas and Ignacio, who paid a whopping $250 for 17,000 acres under a land grant in 1820. Too much history to explain here but suffice it to say that there were some international technicalities that were settled and eventually Frederick Maish and Thomas Discoll purchased the property from the Ortiz family and began a cattle ranch there called the Canoa Canal Company.

Eventually A Mr. Levi Manning, who was from South Carolina ended up owning the land and calling it the Canoa Ranch Company in 1910. From then on he improved the property and raised his family there. Levi and his son Howell Manning Sr. ran a really successful cattle ranch and eventually owned 550,000 acres.

When Howell Manning Sr. was ready to retire one of his two sons, Howell Manning Jr., took up the yoke of management and he and his family continued to work the ranch until he died in a head on crash on the highway coming back from running one the ranch hands home from the hospital in Tucson. Since then the place was sold off and part of it was purchased for this historic ranch site which is now owned by the County of Pima.

Oh, as an aside, just out the backside of the ranch lies the Santa Cruz River, which at this point is totally underground. On top of that, here lies the beginning of the DeAnza trail. More accurately this is the place where the 250 pioneers who set out from Tubac, heading for San Francisco, spent their first night -- making just 10 miles that first day.

It is a really interesting place and well worth the trip down to Green Valley. Check out some of my photos.

This is the main home built by Levi where he and his family lived. The building behind it housed his two young sons.

This is the home of the Grijalvas. Mr. Grijalva was the head Cowboy and he emigrated here from Mexico during WWII when the US government encouraged Mexican workers to come here to offset the lack of US labor because of the war. Turns out his son Raul who was born in 1948 and lived in this little 280 square foot home for 5 years is currently serving his 6th term as a member of the US Congress, representing AZ. This home has been preserved so that we might see how Mexican laborers and their families lived during this time. Pretty humble.

On the ranch, there were a couple of examples of the types of corals that the Mannings employed. This first pictures shows the Retaque style of fence. They would put in upright posts and then stack the horizontal pieces. There was not just one layer of horizontal pieces, but rather they were laid side by side to form a wall 18" thick.

This type of fence was made out of old water pipes from the city of Tucson. Interestingly, Mr. Manning was involved in the local politics and was able to "recycle" these iron pipes when they were no longer needed. If you look closely, you will see that these pipes were riveted by hand.

Following our visit to the Canoa Ranch, we stopped in Green Valley for a quick lunch at:

Good, down home food, this place reminded us a lot of Coffee And in Truckee. What a cast of characters there were in there.

After lunch we headed home but on the way back we stopped at the Titan Missile ICBM Silo. Also a totally worthwhile tour -- although it did cost $9.50 each. Here are some photos from there: