February 19 - 23, 2015 (Lake Havasu, AZ & Pahrump, NV)

I usually don't combine travel stops but because we will be traveling back to Oregon fairly quickly, at least for us, I'm going too.

We got packed up and hit the road from Yuma to our next destination of Lake Havasu around 9:30 a.m.  We had an uneventful trip with no wind against us this time and arrived in Lake Havasu around 12:30 p.m.  Because this is just a one night stop, we didn't even try to get into our favorite park in Lake Havasu and just opted for one right alongside the highway.  

Havasu Falls RV Resort

When we arrived at Havasu Falls RV Resort they had a no vacancy sign out, good thing we had called ahead for reservations.  We got setup in our pull through site and headed out to fuel up the truck and then stop and visit our friends Marie and Everett at Havasu RV Resort (where we stayed last winter and made a stop this fall on our way to Yuma).  

As we were driving into Havasu RV Resort, we couldn't believe how crowded the park was.  Almost every site was full.  Wow, we didn't remember it being this full last year.  We found Marie and Everett home and stopped and visited for a couple hours.  It was fun catching up and hearing about their adventures this winter.  They told us that one of the rv parks in Lake Havasu was going through a transition with new owners and the monthly rent was doubling so a lot of folks were looking for other accommodations which is probably why there was no vacancy at our park and theirs.  We unfortunately forgot to bring our camera so we didn't get a picture of Marie and Everett this time around.  Hopefully our paths will cross this summer in Oregon.  

After our visit, we just headed back to our park, took Gracie for a walk, had dinner and relaxed in front of the tv.  Tomorrow we head to Pahrump, NV.

We were on the road by 9:00 a.m. this morning, it sure makes a difference when you only stay one night, it makes the setup and tear down quicker.  We had another nice drive today and arrived at Wine Ridge RV Resort in Pahrump, NV around noon.  We will be staying here for 3 nights. 

Wine Ridge RV Resort

After we got setup, we took the routine walk around the park with Gracie to check out all the different rigs and see if there was anything new.  This will be the 3rd time we've stayed at this park and we really like it.  It's not a huge park, the sites are level and they have a nice restaurant and winery on site.  So we did a little reading in the afternoon, it was a bit too cool to go swimming in the pool but warm enough to sit outside and read which works for me.  We went and did a little wine tasting and then that was pretty much our day.

Saturday we went out to breakfast at a little place called Mom's Diner.  We both enjoyed our breakfasts and were glad we happened upon this place, it was quite by accident.  We were looking for a place to eat and driving down the main street of Pahrump and had gotten to the end and decided to turn around and while turning around, spotted this diner down the side street.  It was packed when we got there, so that's usually a pretty good sign it's good food, which is was.

After breakfast, we stopped and picked up a few items at Walmart and the grocery store and as we were headed back to the rv, happened to see a swap meet so decided to stop.  We took our time browsing through the vendors, it's amazing what some people try to sell, a lot of it just looks like junk with a few good treasures thrown in here and there.  We came away with a book, a dvd movie and a nice big wicker basket.  

The rest of the afternoon and evening was a repeat of the day before, reading in the sunshine and then wine tasting and then dinner and tv.

Sunday we attended Faith Fellowship here in Pahrump, we've attended this church each time we've been here and it is a nice friendly little church.  One lady even said she remembered us.  After church we just headed back to the 5er for a relaxing rest of the day.  It is cloudy and cool today, we even had a rain shower this morning to wet things down.  Guess it's getting us ready for Oregon spring weather.  It looks like instead of taking 4 days to reach Oregon, we are going to try and do it in 2 days since it looks like the weather will be changing and we want to get over the Cascades before it snows.  So tomorrow we lift the jacks and head down the road....

   

February 6 - 18, 2015 (Yuma, AZ)

This post is just a highlight of a couple of things that we experienced here in Yuma these last two weeks.

Of course we started our morning out with our "walk away the lbs" or "walk aerobics" which we both really love to do.  Then we would stop off at the fitness room and Rich would work out on the equipment and I would do some more stretches.  After that it was shower and start our day.  Gracie usually would get a walk to the park and time to play with her ball.  We'd usually do a few chores around the 5er or do some grocery shopping and then it was time for lunch.  After lunch, we would do some reading and then head to the pool for a nice swim.  Sometimes I'd go early and lay in the sun and read and then Rich would come and join me for a swim.  Then it was time for dinner and a relaxing evening around the 5er, either reading or watching tv.

One event we participated in was called the Mobster Ball.  It was a dinner/dance put on by The Palms and the theme was back in the gangster days of the roaring 20's.  The fun thing was that people dressed up in "gangster and flapper" costumes.  Needless to say, Rich and I didn't have any of that type of clothing with us, so we spent one morning checking out the local thrift shops for our costumes.  Last year when they held this dinner/dance, only a few people dressed up, well the word spread about the fun that was had last year, so this year, almost everyone was dressed up.  It was really fun to see some of the costumes.  

One side of the ballroom before the dinner/dance started

Our costumes, you can't tell in the picture, but Rich's pants are pin stripe.  We tried to find suspenders, but they were sold out.....hmmm couldn't be because most men at the dance had them on?  Next year we'll go shopping earlier or bring some with us.  

This is our table.  The lady with the red flower had a beautiful flapper dress with lots of fringe and loved her red gloves.  The gentleman to my right was from Quebec with a distinct French accent, he had on the white tie and suspenders, but was wearing shorts.  =)  You meet a lot of Canadians at The Palms.

We had a very fun night.  They served us a spaghetti and meatball dinner with a small slice of cake for dessert.  It was very tasty.  Then we spent the rest of the evening dancing our dinner off.  It was a very fun time.  We will definitely take in this event next year if we are in Yuma. 

A couple of days before we left Yuma, I read on a friend's blog that they were in Yuma at one of the rv parks.  So after our morning routine, we set off to see if we could find them.  I knew which park they were in and what type of rv they had, but no idea what site they were in.  Well I'm happy to report that we found them without a bit of trouble.  Just as we were pulling into the rv park and deciding our strategy I saw way down the street a bit of a blue, and blue not being the standard rv color, decided we should check that out before we started our search.  Well it was their rig, "Miss Blue" all right.  There door was open, so we hopped out and knocked on the door.....surprise, it's Rich and Kelly and we are here for a visit.  =)  I do think we surprised them.  We had a nice visit with them and invited them over to visit us at the Palms the next day.  Again, we had a nice visit, catching up on each others adventures and on news of our former co-workers.  Did I mention that we know Marilyn & John from our work days?  We enjoyed both of our visits and were glad we were able to connect this year.  Last year, when they were down south, we kept missing each other and one time think we even passed each other on the freeway.  

John & Marilyn

The other thing we wanted to do before we left Yuma was to ride our bikes along the Colorado River on the Yuma East Wetlands trail.  So after our normal morning routine, we loaded up our bikes in the truck along with Gracie and headed out.  We stopped first and had an early lunch at our favorite hamburger place - In N Out Burger.  We really enjoy their burgers, fries and chocolate shakes.  We think they have the best shakes and their burgers are delicious.  So after we fueled up our tanks, we headed to the Quartermasters state park to park the truck and catch the start of the bike trail.  

I have to say, that we were a little disappointed about our ride along the Colorado River, just because it was too short and you weren't along the river all that long.  Still it was nice to be out on our bikes.  So on the way back, we weren't ready to stop riding, so at the state park, we went the other direction on the bike trail towards town and actually enjoyed this part of our ride more than we expected.  We rode through another park which had a small fishing pond and lots of pretty green grass and nice playgrounds for the kids.  We stopped and rode through a small rv park along the river, not one that we would probably stay in we decided.  We enjoyed getting out on our bikes and Gracie got lots of comments about her "doggie visor".  I couldn't find her "doggie goggles", so she got to wear her visor to keep the sun out of her eyes.  She does really well about keeping on her goggles or visor as long as she is riding in the basket, but if we take her out of the basket, then she tries to get them off.  I think she realizes that they are helpful for keeping the sun and wind out of her eyes when she is in the basket, at least that's what I tell myself.

This was one of the beautiful sunsets we experienced here in Yuma before we left.  We really enjoyed our stay in Yuma this winter and if we are blessed enough to be able to come south again next winter, will probably come to Yuma.  

February 5, 2015 (Yuma, AZ)

We left Patagonia State Park around 9:30 a.m. after dumping our tanks.  We were traveling back to Yuma for a couple weeks and we had the worst travel day yet...

The first adventure was coming up out of Patagonia State Park which we took nice and slow and steep but we made it out.   Whew that was a relief.  We typically use Google Maps on our iphones for directions and today was no exception.  As we got close to Nogales, Google maps directed us onto a one lane, 10 ton bridge.  Yikes, so we stopped for a minute and a utility truck drove around us and motioned us to go on ahead.  Really?  Well, maybe.....but as we rolled a few feet closer to the bridge Rich noticed a low hanging power line crossing the bridge.  That was the deciding factor....nope we are not taking the chance and so we started the arduous task of backing up a 39 foot fifth wheel.  When we first got to the bridge, there wasn't a soul around but now that we had to back up the area turned into Grand Central Station.  Where did all this traffic come from?  And of course there was a pretty steep drop off to the shoulder, so we had to make sure that Rich didn't get too close to the edge of the pavement.  There were some pretty stressful moments, but I think Rich and I handled it well.  We finally got the 5er backed up and onto the highway and I jumped back in the truck and we were off.  Usually Rich will use Google Earth and look over our route but because we had no cell service in Patagonia, that didn't happen this time.  Oh well, we survived that adventure.

We were surprised how big of town Nogales was, I guess in my mind I thought it would be a sleepy little border town.....not so.  We finally got on the highway that would take us to I-10 and Tucson.  We went through an area called Green Valley which we have heard was a very pretty area from several folks throughout our travels, but I have to say it wasn't what I was expecting, first it wasn't all that green and looked pretty much like the rest of the desert area we'd been driving through.  I guess we all like different types of scenery.

Our next adventure was while driving through Tucson on the freeway.  I was on my cell talking to my daughter and noticed Rich kept glancing in the mirror, so I looked out my window and there was a pick up truck with an older gentleman trying to merge into the side of our pickup and 5er.....I don't know how he didn't see us on the freeway, so Rich had to put the brakes on so hard that it made our brakes smoke......I know, I know, we have the right of way and it's the other cars responsibility to safely merge onto the freeway, but we'd rather not have an accident if we can help it.  Sheesh we sure don't like close calls like that.

Our next adventure was also on the Tucson freeway which is a 3 lane freeway almost the whole way to the Casa Grande area where it goes down to two lanes for a bit.  Well the traffic was absolutely awful.....it was wall to wall vehicles and big semi trucks for the full 3 lanes and was pretty much stop and go.  Wow, we've never seen this freeway so busy before, it was like trying to drive through the Seattle area.  Finally after miles and miles and miles of this slow stop and and go traffic, we saw what the problem was.  There was an over size load with police escort traveling through the area which took up two lanes of the freeway.   What in the world?!?  Why would Arizona let an over size load travel on a major freeway and take it down to one lane in the middle of the day?  Didn't make sense to us, but maybe that's why they had a police escort?   Maybe they didn't get the proper permits, etc?  Who knows, all we know is that it made an absolute mess of the freeway, I wonder what they were going to do when they hit the two lane stretch of the freeway.....at least we were passed them.

Because we had a long travel day for us, we had to stop and fuel up which we normally try not to do when we have the 5er attached.  But we remembered the nice fueling station in Gila Bend from our previous trip, so that was our goal.  The fueling stop went without a hitch and we were back on the road.  We finally arrived safely at The Palms around 3:00 p.m.   Whew....glad we don't have these types of travel days very often.

We plan on being at The Palms for a couple weeks and then we will be heading back to Oregon.  I know we are leaving the sunshine early but we have some business that we need to take care of.

The Palms, site 271.  We chose this site so our fridge side of the 5er would be in the shade in the afternoon.  It's on a different street than we were on a couple weeks ago.

February 3 - 4, 2015 (Patagonia Lake State Park, AZ)

Tuesday

Since we had such a pleasant experience at Catlina State Park, we decided to try another state park - Patagonia Lake State Park.  It wasn't too far down the road so we weren't in a really big hurry which was a good thing since we didn't actually leave our site until 11:30 a.m.  It seemed the morning was full of visitors and some phone calls.  

The drive was pretty uneventful until we got to the little town of Patagonia.  As we were leaving town the road was horrible....just full of potholes.  There was road construction going on in the other lane, they were busy filling all the potholes, they just hadn't gotten to our side yet.  Boy that sure slowed us down a bit.  We finally got passed all the potholes and found the turnoff for the state park.  Hmmmm it's a tad bit hilly in this area with some pretty steep inclines, it will be interesting getting out of here, but we were committed and going forward because there was no place for us to turn around.  

After several miles of the curvy and steep hills, we got to the park entrance and got checked in.  We found our site and boy were we disappointed.....this is the first time in all our travels that the utility hookups were on the wrong side of the rv plus we were in a shared site, the only one in the whole park.  Now when we went online and made the reservations, they had a picture of the site with a little detail and nowhere in the picture or the detail was there made mention of the utility situation or that it was a shared site.  Oh well, it's only for two nights, I guess we will manage.  We always travel with plenty of water hose and we have a long electrical cord, so we can reach the utilities, we just have to run them under the coach.

Our site, you can see the utility hookups at the rear of the coach

Our site from the rear, you can see the coach next to us.  To be fair, we've been in full hookup rv parks and been this close to another rv.  It was just that all the other sites in the park had nice distance between them.

After we got setup, we took our walk through the park and the marina and chatted with a few folks.  The rest of the afternoon we just kicked back doing some reading, had dinner, took another walk in the evening and got a picture of the beautiful moon.

We were blessed with a beautiful full moon on our first night.

Wednesday

We had a pretty laid back start to our morning and after a late breakfast, I started work on our budget and Rich rode to the top of one of the hills coming into the park to make a phone call.  We have very sketchy cell service tucked down here in these hills.  I also started waxing the wood inside the rv.  It is amazing being down here in this dry climate how quickly the wood dries out.  I can't imagine leaving our coach down here all summer since it has so much wood inside of it.

After lunch, we took a bike ride around the park and took a few pictures.....

Tall bridge that spans the channel the boats from the marina travel through to get out into the lake.  It was one tall bridge, you can barely see me at the top of it.

View from the top of the bridge looking back at the marina and boat launch area.

View of one side of the lake taken from the top of the bridge

View of the lake in the other direction and see how steep this bridge really is...

View of the lake at dusk.  It really was pretty with lots of birds flying around before settling in for the night and lots of crickets.  We stood here for quite awhile waiting for the moon to rise, but soon the bats came out and started flying around, and then I was ready to go back to the rv.  I know, I know....bats are very good at eating lots of pesky insects, but I still am frightened of them.

We had a nice kick back day hanging out at Patagonia Lake State Park but would we ever return?  Not sure....maybe in a smaller rv and with some sort of boat so you could enjoy being out on the water and definitely not in site 36 or 37.  =)

Tomorrow we head back to Yuma for a couple more weeks.  We've enjoyed our little jaunt and loved seeing some different areas of Arizona.   

January 28 - February 2, 2015 (Benson, AZ)

 Thursday

Our plan today was to drive down to Bisbee and tour the Queen Mine.  Bisbee is south of Tombstone, so part of the drive was a repeat of yesterday.  The landscape around Tombstone is pretty boring, not really what Rich and I pictured but the closer we got to Bisbee the prettier it was.  Bisbee is an old mining town perched in the mountains at 5,538 feet elevation.  

View of Bisbee from the highway

This picture doesn't really do it justice, it really was a picturesque little town.  We found the Queen Mine tour and got our tickets purchased.  

The tours last approximately 1 hour and the mine is a cool 47 degrees year round.  So they advise you to dress warmly which we did.  Finally it was our turn to get our "mining gear" on.

Do we look like miners?

This is the little car that we rode into the mine, the same cars that the actual miners would ride

In we go....

going along the tunnel, the walls were very close and we were told to make sure to keep our hands and feet on the car.

Our first stop at about 750 feet into the mine.  We went up the stairs to a big cavern with lots of mining tunnels leading off the cavern.

Tour guide explaining mining technique, it sure was dark up there.

On the cars and ready to go to our next stop 1500 feet into the mine.

Bicycle the shift boss would ride on tracks to come down into the mine and check on the miners.

What the miners used to go to the bathroom.  Many practical jokes were played on new miners with this portable bathroom........

Tour guide explaining the blasting pattern techniques, you can see the wire hanging out of the blasting holes on the wall. 

This is the mountain where the Queen Mine is located and we were 1500 feet into this mountain on our tour.

We loved our tour of the Queen Mine, it was very informative and very cool to be able to experience the mine as a miner did, though I think we had a little more light with our modern headlamps.  The gift shop had an amazing collection of rocks and I love picking up rocks and bringing them home, so of course I had to purchase a souvenir.  Normally I don't buy rocks but today was an exception.

We really enjoyed Bisbee and wished we would have had more time to explore the town but we had to get back home to let Gracie out.  If we are ever in the area, we will definitely come back to Bisbee.  We enjoyed Bisbee much more than Tombstone.

Friday

Today it was pouring cats and dogs....it reminded us of the rain they get in Oregon.  I guess it's a good day to go and tour the Kartchner Caverns.  This cave was discovered in 1974 and for 12 years remained a secret until the explorers could get help making it a state park.  We took the Rotunda/Throne Room tour which is a 1.5 hour tour.  Before you start the tour, you go through several air lock chambers before you get to the actual cave.  This cave has an average temp of 72 degrees year round and because it is a "living" cave it was very humid and damp.  We got to see the "Kubla Khan", the largest column formation in Arizona.  It was very impressive.  They did not allow any photographs in the cave so if you are interested you can Google Kartchner Caverns for more information.  It was a good way to spend a couple of rainy hours.

Saturday

Today was another rainy day and it was also Rich's birthday.  We had a very relaxing and laid back day.  We went to the Safeway and got a Starbucks coffee, ran a few errands and then just lazed around the 5er until it was time for dinner.  We walked down the street to Pablo's steak house and had a nice dinner.  Rich had a rib eye steak and I had some ribs.  The food was good and we left full.  Of course, we had to stop at Safeway and pick up some ice cream and cake....what's a birthday without ice cream and cake?  

Sunday

It wasn't rainy today, but it sure was drippy outside.  We drove a couple miles out of town to attend the New Life Family Worship Center.  Boy these people were friendly.  I can't tell you how many people including the pastor and his wife that came by and said hi.  We really enjoyed this church service.  Some services just really touch you and for some reason this one really touched me today.  A good way to spend the morning for sure.

The rest of the day we just enjoyed lazing around the 5er.

Monday

Today was a day for paperwork.  Even when traveling you have occasional paperwork that needs to be done....It's our last day in the park as tomorrow we move on.  The sun was out shining so it dried out our chairs and rugs so we won't have to put them away wet tomorrow.  It was good to see the sun again.  

We really enjoyed our time in the Benson area and even got used to hearing the trains so they didn't bother us as much.  We did more sight seeing in this area than we normally do, but we also had our down days which we really enjoy too.  Tomorrow we are going to try another State Park, so stay tuned......

January 27-28, 2015 (Benson, AZ)

Tuesday

We are headed to Benson, AZ so after dumping our tanks we headed down the road.  I'm happy to report that we both survived taking short showers and using paper plates, so we didn't fill up our black/gray tanks.  Rich was very thoughtful and the last two days decided to use the showers in the campground so that it would leave more room in the tanks for my showers.  I have such a thoughtful husband.

We left around 11:30 and arrived at 12:30 p.m. at Butterfield RV Resort & Observatory, a very short trip which was nice.  We did our normal set up routine and then got to sit in our chairs and relax in the sun.  We met our next door neighbors Dave and Barb from Castle Rock, WA so had a good time visiting with them.  This park is in town and right behind a Safeway store, so we walked over and got a few groceries.  We had a nice BBQ steak dinner and after our routine walk through the park to check it out, we relaxed the rest of the evening.  I will have to say that the one negative about this park is that a train track runs through town and the trains have to blow the whistles at all the crossings.  Yikes.....hope we get used to it real soon.  We knew before coming to this park that it was a problem through doing some rv park reviews but decided to take a chance anyway.  

Wednesday

Today our plan is to tour Tombstone, the old cowboy town.  After breakfast we headed out and our first stop coming into Tombstone was Boothill.  Now I have to claim ignorance and didn't really know all the history of this famous graveyard until Rich filled me in.  I guess I haven't watched enough movies or read enough westerns.  When we went into the gift shop we were surprised to find that entry into the graveyard was free....nice.  It really was fascinating walking around and checking out all the graves.  I'll let the pictures do the talking of our time there.....

Boothill Graveyard

Sign as you enter into the gift shop.....

Indian Bill

Thos Cowan 1881 age 11 months &
May Doody 1881 diptheria

This guy was hanged

One of many unknown grave sites...this person was found in an abandoned mine

These gents were killed in the famous gunfight at the OK Corral

We spent quite a bit of time wandering around and reading all the tombstones.  It did give you a sense of history and how our country was settled in the early days.  I'm really glad we stopped.  

After our visit to Boothill we drove on into town and found a parking spot near the courthouse in Tombstone.

We spent some time walking the historic streets of Tombstone which they had blocked off from traffic.  

We had lunch at Big Nose Kate's (Kate was a prostitute and the common in law wife of gunfighter Doc Holliday)

Inside Big Nose Kate's...it was very crowded.  They had a guy singing old western songs and you could go down in the basement and see the old shaft that the night watchman dug which went into one of the many mines in the area.  He is rumored to still be roaming the building at night guarding his stash of ore that he stole.....

One of the 3 gunfight shows that they hold in town.  This one was a comedy.  We wished we would have realized they had 3 different ones because we would have chosen the one they hold at the OK Corral.....oh well, next time.

Street view of Historic Tombstone

This building was fun to tour....it was one of the local newspapers that covered the story of the gunfight at OK Corral.  They still had some of the old printing presses and copy from the newspaper pages.

Rich standing outside the remade version of the OK Corral.  You can't go inside unless you pay a pretty price and we decided that since it wasn't the original that we didn't want to shell out the $$$ to see inside.

We really enjoyed our day touring Tombstone but were a little disappointed that it was so "touristy" and pricey.  The best value and the most interesting site turned out to be the Boothill graveyard.  We are glad that we got to see this little bit of Western history.

After we got back from our tour of Tombstone we decided to sign up for the nightly observatory show since there was rain scheduled after tomorrow for the next couple of days.  Boy am I glad we did.  It was absolutely fascinating and it was free!  It made putting up with the train noise worth it.  If you are ever in Benson, you should spend at least one night here and take in the show.l  The telescope is very big, it's a Meade LX-200 GPS 16 inch Schmidt-Cassegraine telescope.....which means nothing to me, but they said it was like one they would use in universities.  We got to view Venus, the Moon, Orion Nebula, Sirius, Beetlejuice(not spelled correctly but that's how you pronounce it), and Jupiter.  I can't tell you how much I/we enjoyed this.  At one point, Rich almost had to get up and tear me away from the telescope so the other guests could take a look.  I was trying not to take too long, but it was just so fascinating.  

January 23 - 26, 2015 (Catalina State Park, AZ)

Friday

We were lifting our jacks and heading down the road today and wouldn't you know it, we had wind again.  Rats....the wind sure doesn't help our fuel economy, good thing the diesel prices are lower than they have been.  We took our time packing up this morning since we couldn't check into Catalina State Park until 2:00 p.m.  

We finally hit the road around 10:30 a.m. and have approximately a 3.5 hour drive.  We did decide to stop at Gila Bend and top off the diesel tank because the wind had taken our miles per gallon down to around 7.....yikes we normally get around 11-12 mpg.  The truck stop had some interesting metal sculptures.....

Rich & Gracie standing with the triceratops....this dinosaur was Rich's son Jeff's favorite dinosaur when he was a kid....so Jeff, this pictures for you! 

We arrived at Catalina State Park around 2:30 p.m. and got set up in our beautiful site.  We just love the view of the mountains from our back window.  We could only get 4 nights here because the park stays full during the winter months, we were amazed that we got such an amazing view site.

Catalina State Park with the Santa Catalina Mountains in the background

We don't have full hookups, just electric and water so we'll have to go easy on our showers and water consumption so we don't have to dump our black tank before we head out.  This will be the longest that we have gone without full hookups since we've been on the road the last two years.

Saturday

The forecast today was for wind, but here in the park it wasn't windy at all.  The plan this morning was to drive up to Saddlebrooke Ranch and look at the new building lots that just opened up.  Wow was it ever windy at Saddlebrooke, we couldn't believe the difference.  

After our tour at Saddlebrooke, we came back to the 5er and had a bit of lunch.  We decided since it wasn't windy here at the park that we would take one of the hikes.  We decided to hike to the Montrose Pools and then around the Canyon Trail which was about a 3.3 mile hike.  I'll let the pictures do the talking.....

How fun, water in the desert, we had to cross this stream which was very shallow

View of the stream after we crossed and climbed a hill

Saguaro along the trail

Me and Gracie hiking the trail

View from above of the Montrose Pools

More cactus....

another view along the trail

Rich and Gracie resting beside the stream, it was so nice to be hiking around water

Me fishing some shiny rocks out of the stream bed

See how big the saguaro cactus are?

More saguaro cactus

Sign at the end of the trail....good thing we always keep Gracie on a leash.

We really enjoyed our afternoon hiking.  We really enjoy the Tucson area and the desert, it is so much greener than around Lake Havasu where we spent last winter.  The Yuma area is different because they have all the farming, but the desert isn't all that pretty either to our eyes.  I think snow birds like the Yuma area because of the much warmer temps in that area compared to other areas of Arizona this time of year.

Sunday

We attended the same little church that we had several weeks ago when we were in the area.  For a small church, they have a lot going on in the community.

After church we headed to Costco to stock up on a few items that we like to purchase only at Costco.  And of course we had to have lunch there, were else can you get such a reasonable lunch...today we decided on a slice of pizza...yummy.  After we got stocked up at Costco we drove back to the park.  The one thing about the Tucson area is they don't have the best road system and traffic can get pretty heavy and today was no exception.

After we got our groceries put away, we hopped on our bikes and took a bike ride around the park and checked out all the different areas.  They have an equestrian area, several different picnic areas and a camping overflow area.  We stopped and talked to the camp hosts at the overflow area for a bit, they were from Alaska and this was their second year as camp hosts here at the park.  Apparently after April, the park visitors drop way down though they do keep the campgrounds open, I guess it gets too hot.  The temps now are very comfortable....high 60's to low 70's.

Monday

After a morning of various phone calls we grabbed a bite and headed off to do some more shopping.  We needed to get Gracie some more chew treats at Petco and we wanted to stock up at Trader Joe's.  We love to get the aloe vera juice and cranberry juice from them because they are so reasonably priced as well as a few other goodies.  We hadn't been around a Costco or Trader Joe's since we left Oregon in the fall.

What was left of the afternoon, we just spent chilling out in our lawn chairs.  We did chat with our neighbors who were from the San Juan Island in Washington.  It's always fun to hear about other people's adventures.  Tomorrow we head further south, so more adventures to come.  Until then, I'll leave you with a picture of the beautiful sunset on our last night here at Catalina State Park.  We would definitely come back to this park.