Javelina excitement and Mission San Xavier

Early Wed. morning we had some noise outside our camper. When I asked my brave husband to investigate we discovered a javelin (wild pig) trying to get in the dog food bin that we keep under the camper. It has latches so he was unsuccessful.  Our first wildlife!  We took a short drive to the Mission San Xavier just down the road and took the free tour.  It was beautiful- built in the late 1700's and is under constant renovation.  After the tour we visited the little café outside and had Indian tacos- made with fry bread instead of tortillas. We had prickly pear cactus juice to drink.  Everything was very good! A strange thing- on the way out of the "town" a young man was standing by the road with a hand made cardboard sign that said, "Get out well (sic) you can!" and he was shouting at us also.  Really weird.  Our RV park is on the reservation and the homes in the surrounding area are very crude with broken glass all around.  There is a school at the mission that has 135 students in grades 1-12.  Wonder what kind of education they receive.

Nan's in a winning way!

Thursday it rained lightly all day- what a surprise since the prediction was 10-20%.  We grocery shopped and then drove down to the Desert Diamond Casino to buy our tickets for the Oak Ridge Boys concert in Feb.  In order to get the 10% discount we had to sign up for their players' club.  We each got a free play card- mine was for $100 and Kirk's for $10.  We had to put money in a slot to find out how much they were worth.  We came out ahead about $65 so we quit.  Since we were in the money we decided to stay for a sandwich.  Food was good and reasonable.  Back at the camper we made some soup for supper and then went to Bingo at the clubhouse.  About 50 people were there so each game was worth about $26-27.  Each game cost us $1.00 for 4 cards each and I won one of the games so we made money again.  They also had snacks for sale- huge bowls of ice cream for $1.00! We had a good time. On Friday we went to the pot luck supper and met some nice folks who are full time RVers.  There was a good selection of food- I brought calico beans.  On Saturday we did our daily hike in the Tucson Mt. County park - it got up to 70 and was quite pleasant again.  We had planned to go to an RV show but decided to stay at the park so Kirk could watch football.  Went to the clubhouse to Facetime with the kids. Good to see them!!

Madera Canyon- real trees!

This morning we spent some time in the clubhouse using the office internet connection which is much better than at our site.  We were looking for an eye doc to remove Kirk's cataract. It's starting to bother him more.  Still working on that.  Left park about 11 and drove south on 19 towards Green Valley.  We didn't really drive around there, because we followed a sign to Madera Canyon (part of Coronado National Forest).  There was grass (brown) and trees, and we followed the road up to the end which was at 5400 feet elev.(Mt. Wrightson Wilderness)  There was snow on the ground in places and parts of the road were icy (still from the New Year's Eve snowfall). Temp at the top was 65 degrees. There were a couple of cabins to rent, and a cute B&B.  Must really be busy in the summer- there were quite a few hikers today (old folks like us)!  We stopped at a picnic spot and had lunch, then took the dogs hiking on the mostly paved trails that followed a mountain stream which they loved, esp. Lexie!  Saw Arizona Live Oak, sycamore, and Alligator Juniper trees (very scaly bark).  We found a dirt road that led to rustic campsites so we walked that road for a bit, then came back- total hike about an hour.  On the way back from there we stopped at the Desert Diamond Casino to check on tickets for the Feb. 7 Oak Ridge Boys Concert.  Back in Tucson we drove over east of the airport to check out Crazy Horse Campground. NOT nice.  Came back to park and I swam while Kirk took dogs for a short walk.  High today was 77 degrees but very windy.  Partly cloudy, there is a front coming up from Mexico but it's unlikely it will rain. Don't forget to leave a comment- I don't have to publish them but that way if you have a question I can answer it!  We are NOT missing the super cold weather back home- although feeling a bit guilty for being able to avoid it.  Stay warm friends!

Tucson Mt. Park and Saguaro Natl Park Hiking

Monday 1-5-15.  Lovely day today- got up to 72.  We took the dogs to Tucson Mt. Park for a hike- followed a horse trail.  We did see three people on horses on a different trail.  Dogs stayed close by and pretty much stayed on the trail.  Lexi did get some stickers in her paw which Kirk was able to remove easily.  This is a nice park and I'm sure we will be back as it gets tiring to just walk in the area behind the park. Just north of this county park is the Saguaro National Park.  We stopped at the visitor center and got some advice from the volunteer of where to hike.  Very pretty views and tall saguaro cacti everywhere you look!  Didn't have any lunch, too busy hiking.  There is an unpaved loop which we took and let the dogs get out and walk a little bit on the road.  It was pretty rough traveling back out the north end of the park.  Got back to the campground and relaxed outside for awhile.  We are going to the clubhouse tonight to see a musical comedy duo called Laughing Bird.  Should meet some more people there.  So far we haven't been around enough to socialize too much.  Everyone we have met is really nice, except the neighbor who was playing loud music outside this afternoon.  Guess she thought we all have the same taste in music!

Beach Boys and bumming

First a report on the Beach Boys' concert Sat. night at the convention center. It only took us about 20 minutes to get downtown and we found it with ease.  We got there so early we had to stand outside in the cold for half an hour waiting to be let in.  Our seats were in the last row on the floor- there were plenty of empty seats but when Kirk booked them online he wasn't allowed to see a seating chart so we had no idea.  It actually worked out pretty well- most of the people in front of us moved so we had a clear view.  The music was great- they played all the favorite BB tunes. New members of the band (drummer, lead guitar, etc.) were very good. I think the 3 original guys were lip-syncing, myself. 70+ year old men do not sound that good. They were usually the ones on the large screen.  We left right after the last encore and got out relatively quickly- in bed by 11 p.m.  Enjoyable night!

Sunday morning we went to the non-denominational church service in the campground. There were about 20 people there, and it was more like a bible study than church.  The pastor used the King James version of the bible, and had a good message but it took him 40 minutes to say it!  We will probably try a local Lutheran church next week.

We left the dogs behind to go shopping and decided to take a look at the Tucson Mountain Park on the west side of town.  It's a nice area, with a campground and picnic areas.  We will come back with the dogs to hike as there were many trails. High of 63 today, no jackets for the first time. We watched the Lions-Cowboys game on TV and Kirk made hamburgers on the grill for supper. We had above freezing temps overnight.  Full moon- lovely sight coming up! 

Coronado Natl Forest trip

Still freezing overnight, we have to disconnect the water supply at night. Maybe this is the last night for that. Yesterday we shopped for supplies, checked out the local casino, and did laundry.

This morning we took a drive east of Tucson on 10 to Benson, then went south on 90 to Karchner Caverns State Park which abuts a portion of the Coronado Nat. forest.  Temps were in the hi 30's but we got warm quickly hiking up hill.  Nice variety of cacti.  Kirk said all the snakes are sleeping so we let the dogs off leash.  They didn't wander too far.  We hiked about an hour, then ate our picnic lunch before looking at the displays in the visitor center.  There are two different cave tours but they each take 1 1/2 hours and you need reservations.  We will have to come back with Joe and Nancy.  We took a scenic route back along state roads 82 and 83.  lots of grazing land and very hilly country, looked like elk habitat but we didn't spot any.  There was a border crossing station, we got approved to go ahead.  They seem to have them on all north-south roads.  

Got back to our site about 4:00, and we will be going downtown tonight to see the Beach Boys in concert at the Arena. We are looking forward to 50's tomorrow! We know it's been cold at home- sorry to hear that and don't mean to be complaining here.  It's so nice to see the sun and not have to wear boots, hats, mittens! Our internet connection is poor here in the park- had trouble using Facetime last night.  We may need to rely on email more to stay in touch.  Miss you and God bless you all!

  

January 1- arrival in Arizona

We leisurely got up and had a cold breakfast- Kirk walked dogs while I showered.  It was a mostly sunny morning in Las Cruces- 27 degrees and calm. Kirk washed the trailer and truck while I walked dogs again.  Really nice morning but still needed gloves on.  We left the campsite about 11:00, the temp had risen to 44.  Sun feels good in the truck!  We missed our exit to get fuel while looking at a very long train and nearly ran the tank dry. Luckily we had one last chance in NM to fuel up and get some lunch at the adjoining DQ.  While we ate there were snow showers.  Reached the AZ line and the scenery got more interesting- mountains on both sides of Hwy. 10 with traces of snow on them.  Roads are fairly good and not much traffic going west (lots of semis going east).  We got to Tucson and Mission View RV Resort about 4:00 p.m.  Checked in and got set up in site 398. Lots of room- and a view of a mountain of sorts.  Almost missed taking my first sunset picture, which happens about 5:30 here.  We warmed up some lasagna for supper and finished the wine from last night.  It's supposed to freeze again tonight but we are cozy inside.  Met our neighbors from Duluth, Russ and Karen who seemed very nice.  We will get acclimated to our surroundings tomorrow and maybe do some laundry.  Hardly seems possible that this is our life for the next three months!  There are activities going on every day- I will try to get to the water aerobics in the morning- meets 3 days a week in the indoor pool.  (Am I this old??)

Campsite at Mission View