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Each issue we link up with Rachel Miller’s Love Letters to Tucson blog for a letter from a Tucson inhabitant about why they love this fair city. This month, in celebration of Kon Tiki’s 50th birthday, regular Maggie Rickard pays homage to a Tucson classic. Photos by Rachel Miller.
Dear Tucson,
I love you
I love your natural beauty and devastating sunsets.
I love the music and art that you have inspired us to make.
I love that you offer so much more than you ask in return.
I also love being able to have one of Kon Tiki’s lovely rummy cocktail at the end of an overly rough day.
I fell in love with you on vacation. Following a particularly strenuous physical therapy session, I opened the door of Kon Tiki and entered another world. While we poured over tiki on Ebay in New York, we could find no real Tiki bars. In Tucson I could be IN the Kon Tiki.
Kon Tiki is our staycation, our escape. When we want to be in another place we open the door and find paradise here. For a few hours… an escape to relax.
Maggie
Velvet Hammer, aka Maggie Rickard, moved to Tucson in 2002 with her partner Mark Bloom. Drawn by the warm weather, the lack of walk-up apartment buildings and the Kon Tiki bar, Maggie and Mark have been creating beautiful glass mosaics and art as Velvet Glass since they moved here. Maggie’s alter- ego Velvet Hammer is the drummer for the Jonestown Band
You can see the rest of Maggie’s photo shoot here.
Maggie outside her favorite haunt, Kon Tiki.
