Tucson Food Tour

Tracey found a fun idea – a walking food tour! We met downtown and our guide took us to a variety of local restaurants, each of which had prepared menu samples for us. We were a small group of about 12 or 15 people, mostly retirees who live in Tucson. There was also a woman with a professional camera on the tour with us. The guide briefly explained her presence by saying something about marketing, and I assumed she was taking photos for their website.

As we walked, our cheerful guide entertained us with local recommendations and stories of Tucson history. It was a great way to learn about the area.

Here we are at the Hotel Congress where the tour met.

This is the old Pima County Courthouse, now used as a visitor center and museum.

One of the first restaurants on our tour was The Café A La Cart, which is on the grounds of the Tucson Museum of Art. An odd thing happened to me at this very cute café.

I was the last of the group to enter the café (I tend to hang on the edges of gatherings). The café was charming, but seemed quite dark inside compared to the glare of the street. A small private room was reserved for our group. As I started to follow the group into the private room, it seemed even darker, and crowded and…I just backed right out again.

I have occasionally experienced a bit of claustrophobia before, but I never expected it to suddenly occur in a restaurant. I think it’s worse when I’m packed tightly with a group of strangers. It’s one of the reasons I don’t like to fly on an airplane – I’m trapped in a small space with strangers very close all around me.

Once at a Pride Parade in San Francisco, the crowd was moving through the street and slowly being funneled into a tighter space until the crowd was pressing against me on all sides. That was very hard for me. At the time I didn’t think of it as claustrophobia, it seemed more like a fear of crowds. I think I must have some combination of fear of small spaces combined with being too close to numerous strangers.

Most of the time small spaces are fine. I’m ok crammed into our teeny tiny camper van. I did have one instance of claustrophobia in the middle of the night on our little sailboat, but that was because the tide had gone out and we had run aground in the sand and my subconscious realized something wasn’t right.

It’s understandable to feel claustrophobic in a below-deck sleeping birth the size of a coffin with no headroom, on a hot and humid night in the tropics, on a boat that was supposed to be gently rocking but had suddenly shuddered to a dead stop. And it’s understandable to feel claustrophobic in a crowd of thousands of people in San Francisco, being funneled between two chain link fences, crushed, with no way to go anywhere other than the direction the crowd is pressing.

But at the restaurant, it was really unexpected. I started to walk in without any hesitation; it never occurred to me that it would be a problem. But when I got about a foot into the room, I just turned around and walked back out.

The tour guide was behind me, and I calmly told him that I’d be waiting outside. I said it was too claustrophobic for me, I’m very sorry, don’t worry about me, I was fine, I would just wait outside.

The guide handled it really well. He didn’t make a big deal about it. He asked one of the servers if they would be able to serve me at a small table right outside the private room. And they said sure.

I felt a little foolish sitting out there by myself, but it was also a great relief.

Once Tracey figured out what was going on, she came out and joined me. They served the two of us our salads out there, and it all worked out. I really appreciated everyone accommodating me without making a big deal about it. I was rather apologetic, but these things aren’t our fault.

Our salad was excellent, and soon we were out in the Tucson sun, walking to more restaurants.

I was surprised this spacious patio at El Charro was empty, but I think it had not yet opened up.

I was hoping we were going to get to eat out there, but instead we were seated in a small interior bar with windows overlooking the patio.

I would be interested in coming back sometime when the patio was open. We had bites of several different kinds of tamales, and they were great. I am a big tamale fan.

We didn’t eat at this next restaurant – I don’t think they were open yet. But apparently it’s a local institution, so our guide pointed it out.

Here’s another shot of the courthouse as we circled back towards our starting point.

After awhile it was hard to keep straight where we were and where we’d been. I took this picture to remember this restaurant because I thought the food was quite good.

This glitzy mirrored menu at an ice cream shop was fun but hard to read and unfortunately inaccurate. No coconut lemon cake ice cream for me, alas.

I don’t remember what I ended up substituting as my second choice, in that rushed, just-pick-something moment, but it was still good. Our tour came to a perfect ending with ice cream on the sidewalk patio.

Now here’s the funny part. Remember how I was completely ignoring a woman with a large camera? Turns out she wasn’t just taking still photos for their website. We were on the news!

I had no idea. A few days later, John was checking the local news on the internet like he always does, and found this: https://www.kgun9.com/spiritofsoaz/tucson-food-tours-marks-10th-season

The reporter didn’t interview me. I mean, good choice. I’m not the sort of extroverted person who would come up with peppy marketing soundbites. I’m thoughtful. Practical. Boring.

In the video you can occasionally see Tracey and I from the back, or from a distance. You can spot us by our hats.

Here you can see the back of Tracey at the start of the video. That’s our guide giving his intro talk.

Here you can see me in a gray hat and black skirt, trailing along behind everyone else, lost in my own little world. La-la-la, look at the buildings!

Here we are, in hats on the left.

And here we are busily focusing on our food, while, oblivious to me, the camera woman was interviewing some of the more gregarious people on the tour.

What can I say, it’s a food tour after all, right? So I’m enjoying the food!

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