Desert Trails- Dispatch 3

Part of our motivation for staying in Tucson was to attend the Tucson Jazz Festival and the city’s Gem and Mineral Show. Our extended stay also gave us a chance to wander downtown Tucson and checkout its many murals.

Most of the shows we attended for the Jazz Festival took place in the Century Room, a relatively new, two year old club in the Congress Hotel.

This is a world class jazz venue that offers music almost nightly. We enjoyed everything we saw at the club and the Old Fashions were tasty.

On of the great things about jazz festivals (besides the music) is meeting and connecting with fellow fans. This trip we met a terrific couple from Los Angeles, Rob and Fumiko. We hung out, went to dinner and enjoyed their company.

We also attended some terrific shows in some of Tucson’s larger music venues.

We enjoyed two shows at the restored Fox Tucson Theatre.

It was a phenomenal week of music. The festival got us downtown almost daily which gave us an opportunity to checkout downtown’s many murals.

The Tucson Gem and Mineral Show is an annual event that draws thousands of visitors from around the world. The event is billed as the world’s largest gem and mineral show and we believe it. It’s been on our “to do” list for a while and this year we made it happen.

An African Village was set up in tents on a large parking lot. This is where vendors from Africa set up shop.

It’s an overwhelming experience to wander through the exhibits. After about four hours our eyes glazed over and knew it was time to move on. Meanwhile, back at camp the the Sunday music program continued full speed ahead.

In between all the music we continue to enjoy the stunning Arizona sunsets.