A day in Sunny Tucson

We are short timers here in Tucson and are getting some Dr & Dentist appointments out of the way before we hit the road.  Routine stuff, but necessary.

It was such a nice day here that we decided to go geocaching downtown today.  The rattlesnakes have come out early this year so we will avoid the desert and high weeds.  Five people have been bitten already here in the Tucson area.

It was a great day and we found 13 urban caches and some of them were difficult to find.  A number of them were in local parks and the parks out here are heavily used during the day by families with children.  That didn't slow us down.

We found one cache near a school and two cachers from Green Valley showed up looking for it.  Since I had it in my hand it made it easy for them.  One lady was in her 80s and the other was younger, but they had found 9 caches before noon and didn't waste a lot of time chatting about geocaching.  Find it, sign log and plug in the next one.  

Gerry was in her stealth mode when she found one of the caches in a busy park.  I don't know if the people even saw her looking for the cache.  Actually, the two ladies above found this before us and had the family help them find the cache so we didn't feel that bad about looking while they were there.  

We stopped for lunch and had soup and salad and hit the trail again.  We revisited a cache that wasn't there a couple days ago and lo and behold it was there today.  I don't know what happened but maybe someone replaced it.  

That was our day.

Madera Canyon

My brother Dick and his friend Sue arrived in town last night on their way to Barstow, CA with a truck load.  They spent the night at the Tucson Truck Terminal (TTT) as they usually do while in the area.

Gerry and I met them for breakfast today and got caught up on family matters.  We decided to take a trip to Madera Canyon today and took the back roads through the Pecan Groves and down past the Quail Creek housing community.  Quail Creek was having their Canadian Days so we stopped to see what was going on.  Gerry and Sue went into the sales office and got their pictures taken for free.  They checked out a $349,000 house and said that was enough.  Dick and I stayed in the car and guarded it from bad people.  

We then drove up to Madera Canyon which is east of Green Valley, AZ.  The drive takes you from 3,000ft through desert and finally into pine trees and a narrow canyon at 5400ft.  There are some houses in the Canyon and a number of picnic areas, plus a Federal campground.  No hookups!.  The view from the end of the road was beautiful with some snow still on the mountain peaks.  It was about 10 degrees cooler up there and very refreshing.

We picked up a few geocaches up on the mountain and I showed Sue how to geocache and what it was about.  She loved it and is hooked, but I am not optimistic that my brother Dick will take up the hobby.


Gerry wanted to get some photos of a hammer head cactus and one other interesting on the way back.  They were both very large and quite old. 
 

Geocaching Friday

Well, our day started early with  phone call from our daughter Cassie.  She had a few questions about our plans after the graduation parties in May and before the wedding in June.  We are trying to work it out so they can join us in the motor home a few days before or after the wedding.  She didn't remember that Arizona doesn't go on daylight savings time and we are three hours behind Maryland time wise.

There were some new caches hidden near where we are staying and we decided to pick them up.  A cacher had hidden 13 caches in a row along a no longer used highway and we went out to find them all.  We were successful and logged the caches bringing our total finds to 745 since October, 2009.  We had to keep our eyes open for the caches and creepy crawlers since it has warmed up and the rattlesnakes are active again.

While we were out there a very nice Border Patrol agent stopped to see if we were allright since we were parked alongside of the road.  It is common out here for illegals to hide out and then someone will pick them up in a car, so I imagine he was wondering if that is what we were up to.  I was glad to see him doing his job and checking for illegals.  A couple years ago one of the campers here ( Sherwin ) at CCRV called it in that he saw some illegals near the campground.  Two Border Patrol agents responded to the call and one of them stood on the railroad pass so he could see them.  The agent on the bridge was the one we were talking to.  They caught 12 of them that day and escorted them back to Mexico.

My brother arrived in Tucson around 7pm local time.  We will see them early Saturday morning for breakfast.  He & Sue will be here on Saturday so we will have to plan an exciting adventure for them.  

Guadalajara Grill

My cousin Sharon and Al have been spending the winter here in Tucson since last November and are planning on leaving here for Yuma on Tuesday.  We all went to the Guadalajara Grill for their last dinner here in Tucson.  Sharon wanted to go out for a Mexican meal for dinner and this was the place we chose.  Great food, drinks and a band to entertain us.  We had a special chair picked out for Sharon and I think she must have shrunk.

It was great having them out here and doing things with them.  Hope we can see them again next winter.

It was very windy out here today and the dust was heavy.  Sharon & Al stay at the Pima County Fairgrounds and they have a lot of dirt fields out there with no cover.  When the winds are strong like today they get blasted with the dust.  The park watered the grounds to try and keep the dust down with limited success.  Maybe they should spread gravel like many other parks do out here to help keep the dust down.


When we walked out of the restaurant we had a surprise waiting for us.  It was actually raining and I had to use the windshield wipers on the way home.  This was only the 2nd time we've had rain since we got here in November.  To say it was dry would be an understatement.  The rain was welcome.

Have a safe trip you guys and enjoy yourselves. 

Oh, btw, La Mesa Rv did not have the part they ordered on March 2nd and said to call back in a few days to see if it has arrived.  I will give them one more chance and then take the repair elsewhere.  I've heard to many people complain about them never getting parts on time and delaying repairs for weeks and months at a time.

Back to Tucson

Today was departure day and we were up before the chickens. I am not a morning person. We packed up and had a cup of coffee and hit the road for Tucson. We had a hard time keeping awake and stopped in Las Cruces for breakfast. Several cups of coffee woke us up and we made the drive home in very good time.

At about the same place on I-10 in Arizona we were delayed again by an accident. A SUV had driven off the road and rolled and came upright in a tree The medivac helicopter was just leaving as we came to the wreck. It wasn't that bad time wise for us but we found it ironic that there were two accidents in the same general area on the lanes that we needed to take.

We did make it back to Tucson in time to unload the car and get ready to take the MH in for a safety recall on the Norcold refrigerator on Monday morning. That is, if they have the part in by them. We have to call them in the morning to see if the appointment is still a go.

NOTE.  I updated the last few days all at once.  Too busy during the visit to update the blog.