Thursday March 21st, 2019
We met Dawn and Ron at Bobo’s Restaurant for breakfast. TripAdvisor sure got this place right! The place wasn’t fancy, the tables were full and packed a little too close together but the fried potatoes were just as good as my Grandma’s used to be. Ron’s pancake was the full size of a dinner plate topped with an apple combo that made it look more like giant dessert (and that was the Senior size)! It was great the cousins got to get together while we were in Tucson.

We drove up to and through the Mt Lemon Scenic Byway. It was like the City of Rocks in New Mexico combined with the Saguaro State Park in Tucson on steroids! We could have had a clearer day but it was still beautiful. The haze made it hard to get great photos but we gave it our best shot.

Wednesday March 20th, 2019

I’d been looking forward to a return trip to Casino Del Sol! Yes, it’s a casino but it’s like a smaller version of a Vegas casino with cool lighting and awesome ceilings. We had some fun happy hour drinks (Pineapple Paradise was yummy) and spent the afternoon chasing a big win. Alas no, but it was fun!

We met Dawn and Ron at Tiny’s Saloon and Steakhouse for supper. It’s a local fav and sort of a biker bar, burger joint, warehouse grill kinda place. It was hoppin’ that’s for sure!

Tuesday March 19th, 2019

We picked a perfect day to visit Saguaro National Park. We drove the loop, saw tons of Saguaro Cactus and desert views. We stopped at the Visitor Center (along with a whole bunch of other visitors) and learned more about the Saguaro. So here’s just a couple tidbits: the Saguaro Cactus can have an average life span of 150 – 175 years and can weigh up 6 tons and grow to be 50 feet tall.
They don’t produce flowers until they’re 35 years old and don’t grow their “arms” until they’re 50-75 years old. They are like the sages of the desert.

Monday March 18th, 2019

This is the go to place around Tucson for a little bit of everything in nature here. The park is huge and covers an amazing amount of information in great natural surroundings. There is something for everyone! There were reptiles, an aviary, a hummingbird compound, rock and mineral displays, fish and other wildlife all in one park. If was a full day experience that’s for sure and we didn’t hike any of the trails. It was an nice touch that they had sunblock dispensers in the restrooms. That was a first!

Sunday March 17th, 2019 – St. Patrick’s Day Parade, Tucson

We spent the day with JP’s cousin Dawn and her husband Ron. They’re vacationing in Tuscon in a Park Model not far from our RV Park.

It’s been ages since the cousins have seen each other so there was lots of catching up to do.

We went to downtown Tucson for the St Patrick’s Day Parade. Tucson has about 400 Irish born members but for the St. Patrick’s Day event just about everyone was in green. There were tartans, kilts and bagpipes, Irish Dancers and a float representing the Society of Perpetual Indulgence, sounded like a fun bunch (though doubtful I could keep up)!

Saturday March 16th, 2019
Finally we made it to good weather! The Desert Trails RV Park just outside of Tucson wasn’t fancy but had everything we needed, plus music in the evenings, a library with DVD’s, pool, food trucks that come in and LOTS of RV campers. We settled in and planned our stay, excited to see sunny skies!
And then . . .
While we were in Las Cruces there was a Springdale really similar to Lucky parked next to us. We met the gals who were traveling in what looked like Lucky’s brother. When we pulled into Desert Trails RV in Tucson (9 days later) there they were! This time we got to share some travel talk.  We’re now Facebook friends, and its been cool because they are living the gypsy life right not too. It was a fun bonus to our Tucson stay and I’m hoping we’ll stay in touch! Our new pals Jamie and Jodi from Michigan.

Friday March 15th, 2019
Today was a travel day and we were excited to be headed into better weather. We try to make our travel days short enough to be at our next stop before dinner time. That way the days aren’t too long and we can be settled in before dark. We got lucky in Deming and following the sage advice of the many TripAdvisor comments, ate at the China Restaurant. It was awesome! I’m not the biggest Chinese Food fan but the food was great, the portions HUGE and the service spot on! That wasn’t the only surprise in Deming. We woke up the next morning to snowfall!

Thursday March 14^th, 2019 – We woke up to clear sunny skies and headed north to Roswell. Its about an hour and half drive with a lot of cattle yards and pecan groves along the way.

We got to our unique destination – The International UFO Museum And Research Center downtown in Roswell. It’s a very busy place! We spent a couple of hours there reading testimonials and looking at photos displays.

It’s really interesting that reputable town folk, military personnel, law enforcement and others who made statements and had notarized documented accounts about the events of the 1947 UFO Crash and it’s Alien occupants, were somehow mistaken. In truth, according to the government it was actually only a weather balloon. I guess the X Files slogan  “The truth is out there” still applies.

The museum had a kitschy but well decorated, well stocked and very busy gift shop. Roswell has made good on its UFO business.

The town is full of Alien gift shops, Aliens as advertisements and some funny slogans on workers tees. Peppers Restaurant servers wore shirts with Ca-alien-te  (caliente = hot) which is perfect for Alien Mexican Food I’m thinkin’!

After grabbing a good lunch at Peppers our next stop was The Anderson Museum of Contemporary Art. Its not a huge museum but had some great pieces. The museum is privately owned by artist Donald B. Anderson whose work is in the museum as well as the work of artists that he has brought on board. We only had an hour to browse but it was a good choice for the second part of our day.  You can see more at https://rair.org/about-amoca

It was nice getting out and about after the awful weather. Roswell was a clean, pretty town and had a character all its own. Tomorrow we head west in search of better weather!

Monday March 11th – Wednesday March 13th
It was 3 hours of wide-open space from El Paso TX to Carlsbad NM. The Carlsbad RV Park is just outside of town and had everything we needed except good Wi-Fi. We settled in late Monday afternoon, then took a drive through town just to get a lay of the land. The forecast was for stormy weather and it rolled in Tuesday AM with a vengeance. Once the storm settled, we headed into town for breakfast. Carlsbad was covered by low, dark skies so we hunkered down in Lucky and worked on cancelling some of our reservations and revamping our schedule. We were headed north from Carlsbad to stay at a couple of lakes so JP could fish. It’s way too cold for that to be fun (or fruitful) so we’re aiming for warmer weather back in Arizona. It was a mighty storm all night long with crazy wind and rain.

By late afternoon Tuesday the next storm hit hard. The weather service warned of 70 mph gusts, 1.5 inch hail, rain and the sirens sounded out the possibility of a tornado. It was really dramatic! Lucky rocked with the wind, the rain pelted down and the lightening rolled around us. By the time it quieted down Lucky was sitting in his own little lake. There’s more storm on the way. I guess we’re hostage to the weather but at least we weren’t in a tent like some of the campers here!

The storm is actually called a Bomb Cyclone and this is how it went according to a local news broadcast for Eddy County where we were:

“New Mexico experienced what’s called a ‘Bomb Cyclone’ packing wind gusts of more than 100 mph and dumping a foot of snow. No part of the state was spared, but some areas are being hit harder than others. 

It is finally calming down across much of the state after almost two full days of very active and severe storms. New Mexico has seen almost every kind of weather this week, but Wednesday the big danger was gusting winds. 

Winds strong enough to send a whole cargo train barreling off a bridge near Logan, rip off a school’s roof in Roswell, and knock over at least a dozen cars around Wagon Mound; are also creating whiteout conditions in the northern mountains, shutting down highways, knocking out power, and sending trees into the roads and onto homes”. 

Sunday March 10th, 2019- Our plans for Sunday went askew when we realized it that Sunday meant a lot of things were closed. Apparently, we can’t go forever without doing laundry so we caught up at the KOA where we’re staying.

We went into the little town of Anthony and had an authentic Mexican meal at the Twins Mexican Restaurant. It wasn’t fancy but really very good. We spent the evening catching up loose ends and getting ready to launch in the morning.