Winslow and Tucson, March 28, 2026
It’s a long drive, almost five hours, from Winslow to Tucson. We got gas in Holbrook, paying another hundred bucks to feed the beast. Next to the filling station is the kind of thing that makes Arizona special.
But the scenery on the rest of the drive is superb. As the land rose, we began to leave the sagebrush for scrub forest. We were soon in the White Mountains; in Showlow, the biggest town, we were again surrounded by Ponderosa Pines.
After a long descent, the road follows a snaking path through the spectacular Salt River Canyon.
The rest of the drive took us up, down, and around a series of mountain ranges. The vegetation gradually changed to the classic Sonoran desert mix, with Saguaro, Palo Verde and ocotillo.
We reached our hotel, the Hacienda Del Sol about 2, and took some time to relax. We’d been going pretty hard in northern Arizona. The hotel is gorgeous. It was built by my mother’s boss, John Murphey, in 1929 as a girls’ school, the Hacienda Del Sol School for Girls. The rooms are comfortable, but that isn’t the main virtue of the place: it has been sited to take maximum advantage of the desert vegetation; one is in a huge, varied desert garden.
And it sits in the foothills, with bracing views of the nearby Catalina Mountains.
Sarah, Dan, and the girls arrived at about six, and we immediately drove into town for dinner. We went to the Guadalajara Original Kitchen, which serve classic Arizona / Mexican dishes. The salsa made at the table was excellent, and the food very good. It was wonderful to be in Arizona with our girls!
