Tucson is where I first learned to appreciate the desert. Growing up in the northeast I never really got it till one day while at the Tucson Gem Show I took a drive and drove off the highway to Phoenix and took a gnarly trail for ten miles looking for an abandoned copper mining town. Once I got there I was stunned by the enormity of the landscape and especially the quiet. Today some friends and I stayed closer to the city and found this trail through hills covered with cactus.