Last major stop for this long weekend trip is at Tumacacori National Historical Park before returning to Phoenix via Tucson. We have been here before and liked it and our relative adores churches so it is a great place to end the trip. Given that we even have an Annual Pass so it is free entry it is an even better value proposition for us.
Of course Tumacacori is not an active church anymore as it was abandoned some time ago however it is still impressive and makes for some excellent photos both from the front and the back.
Inside you can get an idea how it was organized during its heyday, even now it is impressive and likely it would have been even more so a few hundred years ago.
There are two entrances to the church and we exit through the second one to the right of the altar for another great view of the church from the side.
Behind the church is the never finished burial chapel and a row of tombs, likely marked again more recently and not in the original places. What is true is that the cemetery was here however the exact location of the tombs has been lost.
We then explore the nearby storage area, where likely all the goods for the mission were held in storage durings its heyday.
We then pass again through the church admiring the interior without the pressure of the horde of children following us, as it was initially.
There are a few more outlying buildings and we visit them also marvelling at the nice floors and cozy looking stoves.
And of course are eyes are drawn back multiple times to the main church, we cannot resist and snap photo after photo of the photogenic building.
We end our visit in the small museum which holds a few dioramas of the church and surrounding communities and some of the statues that adorned the main church.
At this point we are really hungry but we are not sure what is open on New Year’s day. Tubac, our first choice, is closed completely but we find an open Chinese restaurant and eat some interesting pancakes that unfortunately have onions in them as the mystery ingredient, everything else is listed of course. And then we drive back to Phoenix to already prepare for the next trip to California to our relative’s friend.
