Tucson Az

I was disappointed. I had checked into Loews Ventana Canyon Resort hoping for a room with a city view. The lights would be beautiful at night in the clear desert air, I thought. But my room was tucked into the back of the 398-room hotel, facing the Santa Catalina Mountains. I had arrived late on an October day just in time for sunset. The flaming red sky I saw from my window was nice, but I still craved city lights. Until the next morning, that is, when I walked out onto my third-floor patio.

THE Lost Barrio got that name for a reason. It can't be found on any map. Ask locals for directions there, and chances are good you'll get puzzled looks. Just three-quarters of a mile from downtown Tucson, this shopping district isn't so much lost as it is hidden. A highway cuts it off from neighborhoods to the south. A dusty arroyo is its northern border. Its western edge is obscured by a suburban-sized Volvo dealership and a pair of big box stores.

Convicted sniper Lee Boyd Malvo confessed to police that he and cohort John Allen Muhammad were responsible for the 2002 killing of a 60-year-old man on a Tucson golf course, authorities said. "He admitted to the killing of Jerry Taylor," said Capt. Bill Richards, a Tucson police commander. Richards said Malvo spoke to Tucson officers who visited him in jail in Montgomery County, Md. He has immunity from prosecution in the case.

Claiming plaintiffs in sexual abuse cases are demanding more money than can be offered, officials of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Tucson said Wednesday they were considering a bankruptcy filing. An attorney for alleged victims dismissed the talk as a tactic to gain community sympathy and delay litigation. Bishop Gerald F. Kicanas said bankruptcy could be the only way to handle the 19 cases alleging sexual abuse by clergy pending against the diocese.

Somewhere between Palm Springs and Yuma, Ariz., I heard the train whistle blowing, a low-toned moan that roused me from sleep like a gentle alarm clock. I parted the royal blue curtains that shielded the light from my tiny compartment aboard Amtrak's Sunset Limited Superliner and looked out as the rising sun gave substance and shape to the Sonoran Desert sands.

Within my first hour at Tanque Verde Ranch, I spotted a bright red male northern cardinal, singing melodiously, in a mesquite tree. Half an hour later, I saw hummingbirds buzzing around a feeder hanging outside the ranch's nature center. Later during my two-day stay, I added a Gila woodpecker, barn swallows and goldfinches to my bird list. You'd think I was staying at a bird preserve instead of a ranch about 25 miles northeast of Tucson's airport.

As Sabino Creek wound down the canyon in come-hither curves, two boys dangled their skinny legs over a ledge as they caught their breath between dives. Then they stood up side by side and leaped into the deep pool below, surfacing with yelps of exhilaration. I briefly felt an urge to take the plunge, but I settled for a 10-minute dip of the toes. In a spot of such beauty-a place that turned out to be the highlight of a restful and relaxing weekend-I needed no other thrill.

My first golf lesson, from a macho pro at a Caribbean resort, was so miserable that I didn't play again for five years. I wilted under the broiling sun and the scornful gaze of my instructor, who ordered me to do this, do that--rarely disguising his disgust at having to teach a nervous neophyte instead of a real golfer who could appreciate his pithy pointers. I ditched the sport faster than I could yell "Fore!"

Whoever said, "the earth laughs in flowers" wasn't kidding, I mused, as we witnessed the purple sand verbena shimmering in the desert breeze. It was the second week in March, and the wildflower spectacle along DiGiorgio Road in Anza-Borrego Desert State Park seemed to ridicule the desert's austerity. Our family laughed along with the flowers. Sophia, 6, shucked her hiking boots and wiggled her toes in the blooms. Daniel, 1, frolicked among the desert primrose.