Getting to Nogales
Nogales (Spanish for walnuts) is about 65 miles from The University of Arizona campus.
To get to Nogales, take Interstate 10 and head south. At the interchange, take Interstate 19 past the Mission of San Xavier del Bac across the Santa Cruz River. You are out of Tucson now. The interstate follows the Santa Cruz river valley all the way to Nogales; however, you are going up the valley as the river flows north (when it flows) past Tucson. You will leave the saguaros behind before you get to Green Valley as the elevation is increasing.
As you proceed up the valley, the Santa Rita Mountains will be to your left (east) and Kitt Peak with its telescopes to your right. The drive is beautiful with the mountains in the background, the pecan orchards, then cottonwoods, along the river bed. There are generally clear blue skies above you and fluffy white clouds forming over the mountains. Their shadows dance across the valley and may become thunderstorms in the afternoon.
You know you are getting close to Nogales when you see the Rio Rico resort on top the hills to your right and houses climbing up the sides of the mountains to your left. You are in Rio Rico, Spanish for rich river, a suburb of Nogales. Along the interstate you see warehouses associated with the shipment of produce from Mexico into the United States. You are almost to Mariposa road when you see the horse statue that stands perpetually on the top of the hill on the right. Although the horse never moves, it occasionally changes color.
Mariposa road passes under the interstate and you know you are in Nogales. Mariposa clinic is to the east, Nogales high school with a recycled A from The University of Arizona on its scoreboard, to west. The signs will tell you that heading west on Mariposa will take you to the truck port of entry with Mexico. If you follow it until you come to the border, you will see trucks lined up for a mile or more waiting to cross the border. In the winter, the trucks are likely loaded with the fresh vegetables and fruits that you buy in the supermarket.
Nogales is a town of about 20,000 and the population of Santa Cruz County about 40,000. When you consider that there are 37,000 students at The University of Arizona, you know that it is a fairly small town.
Stay on the interstate as it proceeds over the hills and the next exit will be Western Avenue. You want to exit here and proceed west to Holy Cross hospital. The Southeast Arizona Health Education Center (SEAHEC) is located behind the hospital and SEAHEC (pronounced see-heck) is your home base in Nogales. There is office space for students here as well as friendly people who can provide you with all kinds of good information about Nogales, including information on good restaurants. There is also meeting space here and this is where you will meet with your team members and community members for the case management seminar or the community as partner seminar.
If you were to leave SEAHEC and continue south on the interstate, it would quickly curve along the border with Mexico. The houses on the hills and the buildings below would be in Mexico. You are now on the south side of Nogales headed east across the two principal north-south streets in Nogales, Grand Avenue and Morley Avenue. Grand Avenue ends at the DeConcini port-of-entry to Mexico. Passenger vehicles and pedestrians use this port-of-entry. If you were to turn north on Morley it would be as though you were proceeding up the right side of a teardrop; at Mariposa road you could cross to Grand and continue north on Grand. Grand takes you the top of the teardrop at the interstate and back to Tucson.