Well I had expected Tucson to be hot, being in Arizona and all, but I hadn't expected record spring temperatures. 37 degrees both the days I was there. And being a foot traffic tourist I didn't manage to explore great areas in that heat but really just pottered round town until the hotel pool was just too appealing.

But I liked Tucson - the brightly coloured buildings and brightly coloured cactuses to match make it a very pretty city considering it's in the middle of a desert landscape. I visited a couple of museums at the University of Arizona the most interesting of which was the Pottery Project which traces the techniques and changes in indigenous pottery back to the 800s. It doesn't sound like much to write home about but they have this large climate controlled room with row after row of examples of pottery collected for each tribe in the region spanning hundreds of years. Really quite impressive work.

Lessons learnt

- the E, W, S or N in street names (e.g. "E Broadway Boulevard") really does matter and it pays not to just head off for miles down the nearest street that looks close enough to the right name.

- lemonade is the new iced tea