Saturday Fed 17th, 2018

We were up and prepared with our lunch packed and a Denny’s breakfast onboard when we headed out to the many RV Dealerships here in Tucson. The traffic here is awful and the roads lights and on-ramps are all really really confusing! So at least the Dealerships were all in the same vicinity. No rain, clear skies and only a little cool. A good day to find the perfect new Lucky 2 or 22 Lucky or ???

Most lots were big enough that they had carts so you didn’t have to walk across acres of units. We looked, we looked hard. The sales folks were helpful and not pushy at all. We made it easy because we know what has worked for us so we could give specifics to narrow things down. And  . . . Lo and behold! We weren’t able to find anything that fit the bill. We aren’t trying to upgrade, or add size or change class. We just want to be as comfy in our next trailer as we have been in ours. But literally nothing we saw was a fit for us. 

Once we like something we keep it and often when the time comes, we replace it with something similar. My friends will attest to that about me in almost every situation. But I was totally on-board to support whatever new and different trailer JP thought would be best for us and in the end – we BOTH just want the trailer we’ve been calling home on the road. Now the quest is to find another Keystone Springdale 179QB somewhere to fill the bill. Ours was a 2011 (used only 3 times) but this go round it will likely need to be a new or newer version if we can find one – and in a hurry!

BTW – JP was feeling better today so we finally got to go to an excellent Mexican dinner! It will be nice to have him back to his old self again,

Friday Feb 16th, 2018                                                                                                                       

It has to be done and there is no good day to do it so we found the nearest library and spent most of the day there working on our taxes. Back in the day librarians helped you locate a book, stocked books and checked your loaner books out to you. Now they have to be computer techs as well. No matter how easy the instructions read they are never quite right or complete and the poor librarians are there to rescue you. I’m glad we are almost done with taxes now. It is actually the hardest thing for us to do while we are traveling. 

JP still sounds awful but seems to be a bit more himself. We called it early and plan to be up in the AM with a packed lunch to head out on a quest for our new trailer. 

Thursday Feb 15th, 2018                                                                                                             

The Insurance adjuster came out to look over the damage on the trailer and much to our shock – it is actually considered to be a total loss since the estimated cost of repair was 9,400.00. They are happy to take our Lucky as salvage, pay off our trailer with some cash to spare but there is generally a 10 day recapture of the salvaged trailer. WHAT! Most of my friends know it generally takes me months to pick out a shower curtain so a 10 day window to shop for a trailer freaked me out some! We are waiting to see if they will grant us Lucky through the rest of our planned (and paid) for itinerary though April.  Who knows – we could catch a break?

To ease our pain we indulged in a high calorie, super high fat lunch at Five Guys Burgers and Fries. Our blog isn’t a food blog but when its special or odd I just gotta share. We haven’t been to a Five Guys before. That’s probably because there is usually a Red Lobster nearby with luscious cocktails and cheesy biscuits, so it’s a no brainer.

We ordered 2 burgers and a medium fry. Seems simple but never having had the Five Guy experience we weren’t prepared. We picked up our bag with the order in it and JP looks in the bag – with the oddest expression and asks me “what IS this?” and I look inside and say “fries?” Long silence. He takes the bag to the counter and asks “What is this?” and they say “fries!” Apparently our order of 2 burgers and the medium cup of fries were actually in the bottom of the bag under their complementary  (dumped loosely in the bag) mountain of french fries. Literally a MOUNTAIN of loose fries covering our order.  I looked it up online and YES this is a thing. They are being generous and cool. Just letting you know – so you aren’t caught off guard and dumbfounded like we were. Oh – the burgers and the mega mountain of fries we managed to eat were good!     

Wednesday Feb 14th, 2018

We had plans for dinner out but JP is still down for the count. We did find a Goodwill and stocked up on movies for the days ahead. The Goodwills here are amazing. The ones we saw when we were downtown on 4th the other day were not your typical thrift stores. Gotta love a little color!

DCIM100MEDIA

Tuesday Feb 13th, 2018
So in the little square near Beads of Courage there were a couple of interesting pieces. It looks like the maybe the naked lady is asking the passerby if her pose makes her butt look big? Yes, I know, odd things entertain me endlessly!

Later we  headed into the 4th Street District. We had fun hanging out there about the same time last year. Its my kinda place – all funky, quirky and original with a retro vibe. Berkely -esque from back in the day.

We like a shop called Pop Cycle that’s all objects made of other stuff, recycled stuff, odd stuff. 

Like seriously, look at these pieces in Mabel’s on 4th, I have absolutely no explanation as to why these odd hanging doll recycle pieces intrigue me so!  They certainly wouldn’t fit in what I generally like – contemporary modern, so I wouldn’t buy one for myself. Though imagining the reaction of one of my girlfriends opening this up as a gift from me thrills me to the bone! Exactly what would that reaction be? I can’t even imagine how I would respond – weirdness abounds!

We had planned to visit the Museum of Modern Art which is apparently only open a few days a week, which seems to be the case for a lot of the museums we have tried to visit. Maybe another day would be better anyway since JP is being a sport but not feeling very well. Cough syrup and a hot tub and the day came to a close.

Tuesday Feb 13th, 2018                                                                                                                  We found a little artist/gallery plaza with a few outdoor sculptures and then wandered into a place called Beads of Courage.

The little store front is a bead store and place for volunteers to make this unique and amazing concept work for kids battling life threatening diseases. They are able to collect a bead for each phase, injection, transfusions, therapy, procedure and other obstacles that they encounter as they’re treated for their illness. You can see some examples in the picture above.

It’s overwhelming and heartbreaking to say the least. Please look at beadsofcourage.org or look up Beads of Courage on CBS online to learn about their mission for kids. The pictures of the kids with their layers of necklaces of beads makes you realize how difficult and overwhelming life is for them and their families. And .  . . . how fortunate our life has been.

*This post deserves to stand alone – so the rest of our day will be in a seperate post.

Monday Feb 12th, 2018
It was time for the truck to have its maintenance warranty work done so we went to the SUPER HUGE Chevy Dealership. It had well marked lanes filled with cars all lined up for service work. Super efficient, $3.00 coupon toward a treat in their cafe while you wait and great service. All done and road ready! The truck was there a couple of hours so obviously this photo was from prior to opening.

We got some essentials, found Costco, Macy’s, and Walgreen’s and officially had our to do list done! Sadly though JP seems to have picked up an upper respiratory bug. It was really a bummer since he just got over being really sick at the end of December and into January.  So Lucky, the weather (cloudy, cool, rainy) and JP aren’t doing great. But! tomorrow is another day!

Sunday Feb 11th, 2018
Off today for the short trek to Tucson. We stopped for a quick
breakfast bite at McDonald’s and pulled into Rincon Country RV West for our next weeks stay.  It was voted “Mega Park of the Year” and is a resort community that welcomes RV’s. So basically it’s well equipped community of 1000 units equipped with anything you might need to relax and be entertained.

Unfortunately we got off to a rough start getting into our site. As were backing in to our site the front edge of Lucky scraped the palm tree between where our camper pad and our truck parking slab were located. It didn’t seem to be that awful. We weren’t even going 2 miles an hour. The scrape was at the seam on the the front corner on the driver side. Well as you might guess –  that definitely put a damper on the day. We contacted our insurance then it was all about waiting for the insurance adjuster and keeping our fingers crossed. Not nuclear war or terminal illness but upsetting to say the least!

Side Note: Did you know that McDonald’s prices aren’t locked in? Every McDonald’s can charge what they feel their market will bear. We always order the exact same thing and the total with tax in AZ varies from 11.00 – 15.00. I’m thinking Denny’s Senior Menu might be the better deal, especially since at McDonald’s we consider our standard order to be a “Mystery Meal” since it’s usually to go and seldom exactly what we ordered!

Feb 4th- Feb 10th 2018

Sunday Feb 4th   

Time to relocate! We headed the couple of hours to our next destination at Pantagonia Lake State Park and got settled in. We walked around the park and were happy to see it was a good choice in a new area of Arizona.

Monday Feb 5th, 2018                                                                                                                       

I must say AZ State Parks are pretty awesome! Pantagonia State Park has  tons of camp and RV sites, and is clean and well equipped. Evidently this is a popular bird watching area too. Little groups of bird watchers out every morning with their gear in tow. There are a record amount of campers here with their fur babies too. 

Pantagonia Lake is 252 acre lake. The marina rents all kinds of watercraft and carries bait and supplies for fishing.  JP had his pontoon boat out and on the water in no time! Its rumored that the reason fishing some of the lakes hasn’t been good is due to the large amount of birds. I guess a bunch of the planted fish go belly up from shock and then the birds eat them. The whole chain of life thing along with the water temperatures haven’t made for much catching.

Tuesday  Feb 5th, 2018

We took a short day trip into Nogales right on the Mexico border. Since we didn’t need prescriptions, pottery or jewelry we didn’t make the crossing. We did go to a museum in Nogales that was small but interesting. Absolutely no photos allowed though. The volunteer was plesant had lots of info to share . And yes! Yet another jail – they certainly were built to last!

From Nogales we made a stop in Pantagonia which had a couple of cool galleries and stores. Its so amazing how there can be such beautiful and original art everywhere we go. 

Wednesday Feb 6th, 2018                                                                                                              

We headed out to Tumacacori National Historic Park about 30 miles away. Its all about a mission that was first established in the early 1750’s. The photo of the rectangular foundation is the original church. The rest are photos from the 2nd mission church started around the 1800’s. It has been restored in some areas and the church itself was without a roof for years but still the altar area retained some of it’s color and art. The round building is the mortuary, that sits in the cemetery (which also served as a cattle corral). There was a short movie and a guided tour – it was all pretty interesting. It really is amazing that anything can survive as long as these hand built missions and churches. Handmade fire bricks and wood brought from over 30 miles away – and still here for us to see years later. 

Later we took a short hop to Tubac. We got lucky and stumbled into the the 59th Year of the Tubac Festival of the Arts. Lots of fun stuff to see! We got there a little late in the day so it wasn’t terribly busy. We strolled the booths and made our way back before dark.

Thursday Feb 8th, 2018 

We got up early and headed to the Kartchner Carverns about an hour away. We couldn’t decide which tour to take so we did both and were so glad we did! The Kartchner State Park is really incredibly engineered so everyone (including wheelchair travelers and kids of all ages) can have the experience. The tour starts with trams that were purchased from the ’96 Atlanta Olympics bringing you up to the cave entrances. Inside it is really warm and super humid. There is subtle lighting inside the caverns and the tour guides have flashlights to point out the formations they are explaining. No photos are allowed at all. Partly for safety reasons and partly because light can evidently affect the caverns. 

We haven’t been to any other caves or caverns. It was really impressive! I always feel like the historic places we’ve been to felt like, if I could reach out and touch them it might feel like time travel. That was in places like the late 1800’s in Virginia City and Globe, and even farther back in time at Montezuma Castle National Monument the cliff dwelling built between 1100 -1425 AD by the Sinague people. This was different though. We weren’t just viewing the remnants of the past from afar. We were inside of a living cave from a time period that stretched back thousands and thousands of years. So, when that waterdrop fell from the speleothem overhead onto my arm – I may have been touched by water dripping down a 200,000 year old piece of the past. By the way, they even have a name for the drips that touch you on a tour. It’s the “Kiss of The Cave” and guess what? It’s rumored to be LUCKY!

Side Note: OK so I’ve never been claustrophobic, but then again I’ve never been 250′ under a mountain in a cave. There were cement walkways,handrails, and a tour guide for just 15 of us. There were no steep stairs or crawling, scrunching, or sliding – yet my heart was going like crazy. And with no natural light, a 70 degree temperature and 99% humidity it was definitely hard to breathe. So I’m thinking I was feeling claustrophobic. JP felt it some too. It didn’t hamper the experience too much but we were both glad to breath easier and be in daylight by the end of the day!

Friday Feb 9th, 2018

We decided to take a day off! Nope not even chores. Just an R&R day. JP had wanted to go on a hike. I was less enthusiastic after having read all the cautionary signs including the numbers for poison control in case of  spider, scorpion, and rattlesnake bites. There was also instructions on what to do if you encounter someone entering the US illegally. All in all – I was good for a day of nothing special to do. 

Saturday Feb 10th, 2018                                                                                                                   

A beautiful but breezy day so we decided to head back to Tubac. It is after all “Where Art and History Meet.” We spent the first part of the day revisiting the booths at the Tubac Festival of Arts and window shopping at all the cool stores in town. It was kinda nice being able to browse the art from Mexico without the pressure of a vendor pressuring you with “almost free” banter. Of course the prices were  higher but since we weren’t really needing decor for Lucky it didn’t really matter. We did see some unusual and expensive art that made me want to run to a home and decorate – but the impulse passed. Not many shops allowed photos but these 2 pics will give you an idea of the type of shops in town.

I searched online for a good Mexican Restaurant in town and found Elvira’s. We stopped in because evidently folks thought the decor alone warranted the prices. Me – not so much. So we snuck in and took a peek and decided that a Mexican dinner for people who order “no cheese, no beans” at $26.00 a plate wasn’t worth the decor and moved on. It was not your ordinary Mexican Food decor that’s for sure!

Our last stop was at the Tubac Presidio State Park. Again, another Arizona State Park that was well put together and interesting. The schoolhouse was built in 1885 and is the second oldest schoolhouse in AZ. The printing press printed Arizona’s first newspaper in March 3, 1859. There is a film that shows how the newspaper was made. The printing press is still completely functional! The other 2 photos are: a vestibule cape or cloak from 1690 and a statue of St Francis Xavier created prior to 1767 of wood planks, and linen over gesso. It makes me wonder what will be left behind of the baby boomers in another 250 years. Virtual tours I’m guessing?

Even though we skipped the hike on Friday we managed to get in 5.3 miles just cruising the art and history of Tubac on foot today. The drive back to camp for our last night here was – absolutely stunning!

Hey there! If you reading this you are following our blog (thank you!) and I have a question for ya. Last year we posted a blog post for most every day we were on the road. This year I decided to try posting a weekly blog post instead. What do you think? Leave me a comment and let me know which you think is the better the better way to go. So appreciate it!