Make a getaway to Tucson
Tucson, Arizona, www.visittucson.org, first got its taste of tourism by offering dude-ranch vacations to city folk from the East decades ago, but there is much more to do here than just ride horses into the sunset.
It offers a wide selection of bed-and-breakfasts, for example, and the downtown is being restored with new, hip places to shop and eat. Outdoor enthusiasts love it, too. Tucson is ranked by Bicycling magazine as one of the top three North American cities for spinning your wheels.
The Web site offers a Vacation Planner, maps and an image gallery.
The Adobe Rose Inn, www.aroseinn.com, a territorial-style bed-and-breakfast with six rooms, set in a charming older neighborhood near the university, offers a quiet retreat for individuals or couples. It also offers Girlfriend Getaways that owners Marion and Jim Hook will tailor to your interests.
Want to go shoe shopping? Marion will present you with a list of the best shoe boutiques in town. She can also organize trips to antique shops, set up lessons on how to cook Indonesian food, help you learn a craft, such as making pottery, plan a tour of Tucson's art galleries, churches or desert gardens or provide a wine tasting.
A romance packages called An Enchanted Evening includes champagne, the option of dinner delivered to your door or a limo ride to a fine restaurant, and Marion's delicious breakfast, which might include her legendary baked peach and walnut oatmeal. Rates start at $80 in the off season, summer months. Check the site for in-season rates and availability.
The Hotel Congress downtown, www.hotelcongress.com, built in 1919, is a hip, bustling place with a funky style, close to boutiques and galleries as well as the restored train station. The hotel has four bars, avant garde art in the lobby and the Cup Cafe, a fine restaurant where one floor area is made of thousands of suspended pennies. The Congress Cosmo is the favorite drink, while above your head old-time fans whir and an old litho of a cowboy and his horse looks down. The hotel accepts pets, there is wi-fi and rates are low, starting at $65 per night in the off season. It has the feel of an Old West, upscale hostel. However, since it's in the middle of the action, quiet it's not. Prepare to hear the train whistle in the night.
In print
"American Southwest" a Travelers' Tales collection of stories on the West, edited by Sean O'Reilly and James O'Reilly, published by Travelers' Tales at $17.95, includes tales such as a horseback ride through Apache lands and a single-engine plane adventure as the writer soars over lands familiar from pulp westerns. Some of the writers will be new to you, but others are famous, such as Tony Hillerman who writes here about the eerie 3,000-year-old cliff dwellings of Canyon de Chelly, named from the Navajo word for "where the water comes out of the rock."