Photos of our trip to Tanque Verde Ranch in Tucson Arizona in July 2008
Tanque Verde Ranch is guest “dude ranch” located about 15 minutes outside of Tucson, Arizona in desert at the foot of the Rincon Mountains. We went for 6 days in July 2008 and had a great time. Tucson is hot in the summer, and surprisingly it was very rainy at the beginning of our stay, however, the place is absolutely stunning and the ranch is one of the best.
Every day the ranch had 3 trail rides plus lessons. They would outfit you with a horse to fit your style - Lindsey, for example, needed a good horse to ride - I merely needed one that could haul me around the trail.
Every day, Audrey went to kids camp - which meant lots of horse lessons and riding. On the very last day, Audrey got brave enough to venture out onto the trail. Turns out she was a pretty good rider, and she spotted two rattlesnakes.
One day they had a four hour “mountain ride”. Drew, Lindsey and I went on it. It was steep, up and down the mountain, but beautiful. I was saddle sore for awhile after that one.
That’s Drew at the top of the hill about to descend a very steep slope on his horse. This had to be dangerous, but the horses seemed to be able to handle it fine.
After a two hour ride up the mountain, we stopped at a waterfall and stream and ate breakfast - it was very nice, and because of all the rain the day before, the waterfall was flowing hard. Speaking of eating, TVR has some of the best food in Arizona.
Lindsey especially had a great time. She met some good friends. These folks were from Scotland, and they invited Lindsey to be on their team for the “team cow penning” competition - which they won!
Kathy looks like a regular Cowgirl on the trail. It was always hot on the trail, but the scenery and the cactuses were just breathtaking.
On the last day, we left TVR and went to another hotel, before returning home. Drew and I took in the Pima air museum, which has something like 250 aircraft on display. This is an actual SR71 Blackbird - it’s huge!
Audrey loved to hang out at the pool.
