Mission San Xavier del Bac & Kitt Peak

Interior of San Mission Xavier del Bac

We got up around 5 am after sleeping well and started packing up for leaving the Copper Casa AirBnB.  We have been very pleased with our stay here.  The house was very clean and comfortable.  It was convenient to the area attractions that we visited and our host, Laurie, couldn’t be most pleasant.  In addition, the rates were quite fair.  We will be using AirBnB again for our travel plans.

While at the Old Tucson Studio, we heard that the Mission at San Xavier del Bac was a “must see” attraction near Tucson.  We made the one hour drive from our rental arriving at the mission as the morning service was concluding around 10 am.  We sat in the chapel for a bit and admired the beautiful interior décor.  There was a small but informative museum with artifacts from the mission’s over 300 year history.  We watched a short video narrated by Linda Ronstadt showing the efforts by restoration teams to stabilize the structure and art of the church.  We walked up on grotto hill to see the Moorish exterior architecture with the domes and to see the mission’s Latin cross shape.

Mission San Xavier del Bac

Most of the church’s parishioners are members of the Tohono O’odham nation who are believed by many to have descended from the Hohokam culture.  These are the people who built Casa Grande just southeast of Phoenix.  The name Tohono O’odham means “Desert People” in the Tohono O’odham language.

View of Mission San Xavier del Bac from Grotto Hill

By the time we finished touring we were starting to get hungry so we went to the ramadas in front of the mission where Tohono O’odham families sell food.  There were perhaps a dozen of the pole structures providing some shade from the desert sun for the native families preparing food for exiting worshipers and tourists.  Mary, Cindy and Mark had fry bread with either honey or cinnamon and sugar.  I had an Indian taco on fry bread.  It had been a long time since any of us had eaten fry bread.  We all enjoyed our snacks before heading southwest toward the Kitt Peak National Observatory. 

Ramadas with fry bread prepared by Tohono O'odham families

We took Arizona 86 for about an hour going from an elevation of about 2300 feet to Kitt Peak at 7000 feet above sea level.  The air temperature dropped significantly as we drove up the mountain to around 36 degrees.  The blowing wind and icy rain made the day feel even worse.  When we arrived at Kitt Peak National Observatory a tour of the 2.1 meter telescope had just started.  The scientist explained the importance of the research that is done at Kitt Peak and the variety of telescopes on the property.  We learned that the site was selected because the altitude between 7000 and 8000 feet was ideal and that the dry desert air consistently made observations of distant objects very clear.  The Tohono O’odham agreed to permit the observatory to be placed on their land when the observatory was built in the early 1960s.  After learning about the observatory we drove a short distance to the 2.1 meter telescope.  This scope has been updated and used for all sorts of research by a number of agencies.  Our guide told us how the mirror was made and the procedure for recoating the reflective aluminum layer of the surface of the large curved mirror.  We returned through the cold to the visitor center and waited for our 1 pm tour of the Mayall 4 meter telescope.

Mayall 4 meter telescope

The volunteer guide came in and told us that the tour may be cancelled.  It is the observatory’s policy to not visit the 4 meter telescope if the wind is over 50 miles per hour.  He said that the wind is currently at 40 mph and had been gusting to nearly 100 mph earlier in the day.  The guide decided to attempt to visit the telescope since the wind didn’t appear to be strengthening.  We were amazed at the size of the telescope whose mirror was over 16 feet in diameter.  The surface of the mirror is so precise that if it were 3000 miles across there would be less than one inch of irregularity in the surface. 

There is normally a great view from the windows around the Mayall 4 meter telescope but the fog was so thick that we could scarcely see each other in the dense fog.  We walked around the telescope for a bit then drove back down to the visitor center to prepare for our drive back north toward Phoenix.

As we drove down the mountain the air cleared and the temperature warmed.  Within a few minutes we were out of the fog and back into more typical southern Arizona weather.  As we drove northeast of Rt. 86 we were stopped by the US Border Patrol who checked to determine that we were all US citizens.  We picked up Interstate 10 north and continued toward Phoenix.

By the time we were at Casa Grande we were feeling hungry so we stopped at Sho-ga Japanese Restaurant.  Mary, Cindy and I had tempura and Mark had teriyaki beef.  We all enjoyed our meals.

We continued north on I-10 to Sky Harbor Airport, the largest airport in Phoenix.  We dropped Mark & Cindy off at the Avis Car Rental area so they could pick up a rental car for a couple of days.  Although we had to fly home on Monday morning, the Whittingtons were going to visit with friends in Phoenix on Monday then fly home on Tuesday.

We drove back to Chandler and checked into our motel, the Super 8 Chandler Phoenix.  The motel was only $54 and was clean enough but was not a great place to stay.  Mary was unable to print our boarding passes at the lobby computers but was able to get the front desk to print them for her after a good deal of effort.  The motel was fairly noisy until around 11 pm but that wasn’t surprising since a NFL playoff game was in progress.  Later in the night the place quieted down and we were able to get some sleep.