Our day in the Rincon Mountain District of Saguaro National Park—Friday, November 11, 2022—was coming to a close. We had greeted the sun that morning in the Saguaro forest, and we would say goodbye to the sun from the forest too. The next day would be my birthday, and we’d spend it exploring Tucson.

After completing our tour of the Loop Road and our hike up Tanque Verde Ridge, we stopped briefly at the Visitor Center to use the toilet.

Then we exited the Park and drove around its perimeter to Douglas Spring Trailhead at the end of Speedway Boulevard, another major Tucson street that dead ends in the Rincon foothills.

This trailhead is one of the access points to an intersecting network of trails in the Saguaro-filled foothills and beyond. This part of the Park is a choose-your-own-adventure experience in federally designated Wilderness, so we wandered about taking photos, waiting for the sun to set, scanning for Javelinas.

I had cell service, so I texted photos to folks, including my parents, Rick, and Adam.

I love the photo above—which I didn’t know he was taking—so much.

Once the sun was gone, we wandered in the fast-growing dark back toward the trailhead.

Jupiter was the first celestial object to start glowing that evening.

By ten minutes after six, we were back in the car. On the way into town, we stopped briefly by Broadway Trailhead to see if we could see (or smell) any Javelina. No luck.

Back at The Graduate, we showered and got ready for dinner. On the way to the restaurant, The Kingfisher, the kid driving our Lyft remarked, “I like that place. It’s classy.”

It was very old school. Martinis. Wedge salads. The aesthetic was “1988 through 1991” according to Sean. We played a game of “If you were given this restaurant, what would you change and what would you keep?”

Later on back at The Graduate, we checked out The Moonstone, the hotel’s rooftop bar. It was spectacular. The cocktail menu, run through with tequila, mezcal, and sotol, was amazing. One of the drinks, the Cactus Water, has become a staple of parties at our apartment.

Next morning, Saturday, November 12, 2022, was my forty-fourth birthday. I woke up at dawn, took a few photos of the Rincons and the Tucsons, and went back to bed.

I got up for real at 9am, which felt luxurious.

Our plan for my birthday was to just have fun in Tucson instead of heading into the Park.

We started at the Tucson Museum of Art, which definitely punched above its weight for its size.

The primary exhibition up that day was More Than: Expanding Artist Identities from the American West, featuring contemporary artists challenging stereotypical Western personae. It was right up my alley.

We also checked out the museum’s small, impactful collection of Mesoamerican art, including some extraordinary figurative objects.

And works in the permanent collection were laregely by artists of the Southwest.

There was also a just bonkers good solo show, Nothing in Statis, from Monica Aissa Martinez. Sean and I both wished there had been an exhibition catalogue from her show.

After the museum, we checked out Antigone Books, an indy shop on the 4th Street strip.

Then it was birthday afternoon rooftop pool and cocktail time, with views of a National Park.

For my birthday dinner, we headed over to the MSA Annex on the city’s west side. It’s a cool collection of indy shops and galleries.

But that day it was also the site of the International Mariachi Conference‘s annual celebration. In addition to fun performances, there were booths from dozens of the best Mexican restaurants in the city. We tried something from every single one, in addition to tastings of mezcal and tequila from various distillers. It was the perfect way to spend my birthday!

That night, we capped off my birthday by going to see Wakanda Forever (hooray for Angela Bassett) on its opening weekend. Our Lyft driver to the cinema, Ernest, was pretty great. He was a Black man in his sixties, and we got into a long conversation about climate change, conservation, and water issues. His dad had worked for the Army Corps of Engineers, and we both had withering opinions of the logic of so many lush golf courses in a region facing severe water crises. He was delighted that we were going to see Wakanda Forever.

All in all, it was a great birthday. And the next day, we’d be driving southwest to experience Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument.