GreenTree Inn & Suites Florence

Biosphere 2 is about 45 minutes from the hotel, up in Oracle — a 3.14-acre sealed glass and steel structure built in 1991, now run by the University of Arizona as an active research facility open to the public. Summer tours run 8am to 2pm. The structure has greenhouse domes, an ocean biome, a rainforest under glass in the Sonoran Desert — it stops people mid-tour. Hashtags:

Florence has 140+ preserved buildings in its downtown -- territorial-era courthouses, Victorian
storefronts, an 1891 Second Pinal County Courthouse that still looks like it means business.
The self-guided audio walking tour is 1.4 miles and loops through all of it. Most people driving
Hwy 287 pass right through. The ones who stop tend to stay longer than they planned.

Florence's Freedom Fest is at Heritage Park this Friday -- games, music, and the kind of Fourth
of July that fits a town with 140 preserved buildings in its downtown. Florence has been
continuously inhabited since before Arizona was a state. The hotel has an outdoor pool and
whirlpool bath for the rest of the day.