Tucson Children’s Museum at Tohono Chul
In partnership with the Children’s Museum Oro Valley, Tohono Chul now offers special activities and outdoor play spaces for kids. Indoor hands-on exhibits focus on the environment, including the culture, animals and plants native to the Sonoran Desert. Outdoor fun includes fanciful play structures, a performance space, a real tractor and a water-harvesting tank with a water pump. All features are fully accessible. Children must be accompanied by an adult and vice versa.
9 a.m. to 1 p.m., Tuesdays to Sundays indoors; 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily outdoors. Tohono Chul Park, 7366 Paseo del Norte, $15, $6 ages 5 to 12, free younger than age 5, tohonochul.org
W is for worms!
Nan, “Always something to do.” Nanini library will host an event for kids ages 3 to 18 to learn about and play with worms. Ew! Led by Anna Van Devender, garden coordinator at Miles Exploratory Learning Center, kids read worm stories and invent funny, wormy words. They’ll also create worm bins out of repurposed materials, and take worms home to keep as pets or to put to work in the family garden. Dress for a mess and arrive early to be one of the maximum 15 participants.
1 to 3 p.m. Friday, May 26, Nanini Library, 7300 N. Shannon Road, pima.bibliocommons.com, free
Summer Night Market at MSA Annex
In Tucson, locally handmade gifts are the best, whether for yourself or others. We keep a box of good presents on hand in case we need one. Gifts from the Summer Night Market and MSA Annex shops are artsy, quirky, tasty and always fun. The shops stay open late, and shoppers can enjoy libations from Westbound and MiniBar all with the peerless beats of DJ Herm in the background. This year, for the first time, the market also features rotating art installations.
6 to 10 p.m. Friday, May 26, and the last Friday of every month through September, MSA Annex, 267 S. Avenida del Convento, mercadodistrict.com/events, free
Hotel McCoy: “Swimnema Fridays”
Tucson’s mid-mod lodging gem lives its motto, “Always something to do.” They’ve just added a treat for cinephiles to their summer doings: We can watch a movie every Friday from the comfort of the cool, salt-water pool. This Friday, it’s “Grease.” Food is available from a truck in the parking lot and the hotel lobby features a full bar and popcorn. Indulge the temptation to sleep over on a Green Tea memory foam mattress, and wake up to the world’s longest oatmeal bar.
8 p.m. Friday, May 26, and every Friday through October, Hotel McCoy, 720 W. Silverlake Road, $20 pool pass, free to guests, hotelmccoy.com
Tombstone Wyatt Earp Days
Take advantage of this long weekend to visit the old west. It lives on in Tombstone, “The town too tough to die.” The legendary lawman Wyatt Earp walks Tombstone’s streets to this day, and everyone in town dons their 1880s finest this weekend in his honor. Check out the O.K. Corral and the Bird Cage Theatre, and ride a real stagecoach through the town’s history.
10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, May 27, and Sunday, May 28, Tombstone Visitor Center, 395 E. Allen Street, Tombstone, tombstoneweb.com, free
Cirque Roots: “Fire and Flow”
Sky Bar made its name as an “astronomy bar” with special programs attracting faculty and students from the UA’s astronomy program, and astronomy fans from all over. Videos of the extended universe play on a continuous loop on the big screen, and every night the bar breaks out telescopes for stargazing on the patio. Now Cirque Roots brings the fire down to earth every fourth Friday. Company members put on a 20-minute show with acrobats twirling and tossing flames into the night sky.
8:15 p.m. Friday, May 26, and the fourth Friday of every month, Sky Bar, 536 N. Fourth Avenue, cirqueroots.com, free
UAMA: “The Vault Show”
The University of Arizona Art Museum’s collection comprises more than 7,000 works of art spanning the globe over centuries and cultures. It’s all stashed away, unseen, sometimes for decades. Each year UAMA staff lifts new favorites out of that obscurity and offers us a fresh perspective. The result is thematic only in the novelty of its diversity and the insights that only the works’ keepers can provide us.
11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Tuesday to Friday and 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, from Saturday, May 27, to Saturday, Sept. 30, University of Arizona Museum of Art and Archive of Visual Arts, 1031 N. Olive Road, artmuseum.arizona.edu, $8
Tucson Originals 2023 Pizza Throwdown and Dessert Duel
Savor original Tucson takes on the three major food groups — pizza, desserts and brews — at this friendly smackdown. We, the eaters, pick the winners. Hosting the event is Tucson Originals, an alliance among locally owned restaurants that are dialed in to Tucson’s unique culinary traditions. Pizza contenders include Rocco’s Little Chicago, Vero Amore, Firetruck Pizza company, Dante’s fire, The Dutch and more.
6 to 8 p.m. Saturday, May 27, Fresco Pizzeria & Pastaria, 3011 E. Speedway Boulevard, $50 includes three drink tickets and unlimited pizza and desserts, eventbrite.com
Mysterious Babies Jazz Band
Led by soprano saxophone and cornet player Guy Senese, Mysterious Babies plays the jazz folks jammed to in the forties — the music of Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Jelly Roll Morton and other nightclub and dance bands out of Chicago and New Orleans. It could be your jam, literally, if you bring your instrument and play along with traditional numbers like “Once in A While,” “New Orleans Bump,” “Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho,” “Beale Street Blues” — you get the idea. A jam follows the show.
7 to 10:30 p.m. Wednesday, May 31, and every Wednesday, The Century Room, Hotel Congress, 311 E. Congress Street, free or $10 reserved, hotelcongress.com
Odyssey Storytelling: “DNA”
What does “DNA” mean to you? That’s the question Odyssey Storytelling posed with June’s story prompt. Each month’s submissions are curated to determine who will present their stories live on the first Thursday of the month. July, though, is a Spontaneous Story Jam. We learn the topic when we get there, then let fly whatever story the topic inspires from our own experiences. Meanwhile, let’s hear what’s in the June storytellers’ “DNA.”
7 p.m. Thursday, June 1, The Screening Room, 127 E. Congress Street, $15, odysseystorytelling.com
