We went on a day trip from Phoenix to the 3 cities starting with Tombstone, which is about 185 miles south of Phoenix and took us about 3 hours to get there.
Tombstone is a famous Wild West town in the southeastern corner of Arizona, a little over an hour from Tucson. The town has preserved and restored many of the original buildings and opened them up to the public in the form of museums, restaurants, and stores.
Wander down Allen Street – Allen Street is the main street through town, where visitors will inevitably find themselves. This is where many of the major attractions are located, as well as the restaurants and shops, and the famous old saloons. Covered boardwalks run the length of the street and provide a bit of shade in this sunbaked town.
Allen Street is also the scene of occasional historical re-enactments, where performers put on staged gunfights, and barroom brawls break out in the restaurants. Even if nothing is taking place, actors roam the street in western costumes. On one of the corners on Allen Street is the famous O.K. Corral (This was the scene of the famous shoot-out in 1881 between the Earp and Clanton gangs, a legendary event in the Old West) A re-enactment of the gunfight takes place daily inside the OK Corral complete with the sounds of pistols firing and gun smoke in the air.
Rose Tree Museum – First opened in the 1960s, the Rose Tree Museum offers a look at the history of the families who have called Tombstone home for the generations. In the backyard stands what is known as the World’s Largest Rose Tree.
Bisbee – This is a charming former mining town that is set high in the mountains about 10 miles from the Mexican border. We spent an hour in this town walking the quite streets.
Lavender Pit in Bisbee – This is a former open pit copper mine about 900 feet deep. Some 75 million tons of ore were produced here from 1954 to 1970 by which time the ore reserves had depleted.
Saguaro National Park – The park is about 110 miles south of Phoenix. We stopped here on our way back to Phoenix from Bisbee. This park offers an easy opportunity to see and experience the Sonoran Desert, east and west of Tucson. Here, you can see the signature saguaro cactus, which are the tallest species in North America. The park is divided into two sections: the more popular Saguaro East – Rincon Mountain District and Saguaro West – Tucson Mountain District. Saguaro East is easily accessible and has a beautiful, paved, rolling, scenic drive with short hikes. Saguaro West is a bit farther out but retains more of the rugged beauty and has longer and more spectacular hikes, but the scenic drives are on gravel roads.
Your paid admission or park pass is good for both areas, and it takes about an hour to transit between both divisions. We spent a little more than an hour hiking the trails of Saguaro East.
Tucson – We briefly drove around the town on our way back to Phoenix. El Presidio Historic District is one of the oldest inhabited sites in the USA, an area once inhabited by the Hohokam Indians, and in 1775 became the site of a Spanish military fort that would become the City of Tucson. What visitors see today is a mix of Spanish-Mexican and Anglo-American architecture, along with beautifully restored adobe houses.
St. Augustine Cathedral – Built in 1896, the cast stone façade was completed in 1928 and is similar to the Cathedral of Querétaro in Mexico. The façade and towers are all that remain of the original structure after the cathedral was rebuilt in the late 1960s.
If you look carefully at the façade, you’ll be able to see the intricate coat of arms of Pope Pious XI, along with carvings of various native desert plants.
On the day we visited went around Tucson, the church was closed.
