The second half of our PCFG stay started off with a rainy day, but that just gave me time to clean out our wardrobe closet. There are built-in shelves in the back of it that were obscured by hanging clothes, which prevented us from accessing the clothes on the shelves. I did such a nice job of reorganizing, that once done, I couldn’t stop sitting on the edge of the bed gazing into it, admiring my work. Pretty exciting stuff, I know.
During our stay here last year, there were several events held in the fairgrounds that we were able to enjoy for free. This year, there have been fewer events, and only one that caught our interest at all.
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| Barrel Racing |
We watched the racers for about an hour one afternoon, during which we petted lots of dogs, too. Horse people always have dogs, and those dogs are often Heelers and Corgis, two of the best types of dogs in the world.
We took a few more bike rides on The Loop trail and a couple more walk-runs on the fairground’s fitness trail. On the way to one of our bike rides, we pulled into a road-side stand to stock up on some local goodness.
But what about hiking, you say? Well, don’t mind as we do. We headed back to Saguaro N.P. to make a loop out of some trails we hadn’t strung together before.
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| Missing the obvious (jazz hands!) at The Broadway Trailhead. |
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| Inspiring scenery, though. |
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| And a prickly pear growing from a bird nest in a saguaro! |
About midway through that hike, the clouds were beginning to gather, and though it remained quite warm for the rest of that day, rain moved in again the following day. Since I didn’t have another closet to clean, I spent the day firming up route plans for winter 2021. You read that right! The warm-winter states fill up quickly, many a year ahead of time. The early camper gets the spot. If they’re lucky and have good internet.
With cooler weather, but clearer skies, we drove up the next day to Oracle for a visit with Ranger Nancy at her place. She treated us to a delicious home-cooked lunch, and we got to see Mell the kitty again. Then we headed out for a shuttle hike on a section of the AZT.
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| I think they consulted without me about the dress code. |
No matter which section of the AZT we have tackled, it never disappoints. The same could be said for our friend. She is such a font of interesting information as we hike along. She also has a grand sense of humor. At one point, I asked my two companions to pause for a photo op and to ‘act natural.’ Nancy immediately did a little jig, and then:
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| Jesters gestures. |
From our vantage point, we could look down on Biosphere 2.
QUIZ QUESTION: What/where is Biosphere 1?
Before this hike, and having never visited Biosphere 2, neither TBG nor I knew the answer to that question. Not surprisingly, Nancy had worked there in the past, and she taught us more about it while we hiked than I think we could’ve learned had we gone there. Spoiler: It didn’t end well for the pigs.
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| Until we meet again, my friend! |
All that rainy-day route planning allowed us to coordinate some meet-up time next winter with our friends Raven & Chickadee. Which we did during a phone call from
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| our make-shift office during RV maintenance. |
We’d hoped that the customer lounge would have been more accommodating, but it was small, somewhat crowded, and there was a loud product video playing on a maddening loop. All was not lost, though, as we learned the shop had an actual kitchen with a dining area, and they served free lunch to the customers!
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| TBG’s favorite, Zuppa Toscana! |
It was the last of our scheduled maintenance for this stop, then it was back to hitting the trails. Even though we’d been in the Tucson area nearly three weeks, we hadn’t been able to coordinate time to see our friends Kevin and Teresa yet.
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| Moot point. |
K&T don’t read this blog (I know! WTH?!) so we can’t really fault them for not properly fulfilling their sign duties.
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| Hoping to get down to the wash in an upright manner. |
They more than fulfilled their hiking duties, though, since we ended up going a bit further and over a bit more rugged trail than we’d anticipated.
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| Trying to catch up to old buddies catching up. |
We had hoped to do some more visiting with other friends before we headed out of Tucson, but due to full campgrounds and another !@#$%^&* cold caught by me this time, our last days in The Old Pueblo were spent mostly laying low.
Although we are now into 2020’s second month, the year is really just beginning for us. If anyone was counting, we only spent time in four states for all of 2019. As I’ve stressed before, it is not our goal to visit every state, and large travel makes for larger expenses, but travel is, after all, one of the primary reasons we live in an RV. We have a few more adventures planned in Arizona before we leave it behind for some other southwest destinations in California, Nevada, and Utah. After that, we have the state-busting matter of getting from there to Wisconsin by mid-May. We won’t be back to our beloved Southwest for quite some time after we leave Utah, but we are very ready to do a little more rolling.
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| “Fine. Leave. See if I care. I hope you get a tick in Wisconsin.” |
Silly rabbit. Pouting’s for primates.
QUIZ ANSWER: Planet Earth is Biosphere 1!
COMMENTS
Taking the rig in for service is always SUCH a pain. It’s especially bad because we have a dog and a lot of them won’t allow dogs in the waiting areas. So, we’ve had to go drive around and find a park or whatever. It would be nice if they had better waiting areas – especially given how many fulltimers there are out there who have nowhere to go when their rig is being worked on. And there’s really nothing worse than places that insist on playing annoying ads on a loop. Sometimes silence really is golden….
Your photo of Nancy and Mark from a distance while they were hiking is GREAT! What a striking picture!
I’m sure you guys are ready to roll and hopefully you can put all these bugs behind you. You’ve got some big miles and epic scenery coming your way!
I can’t imagine the added layer of stress trying to coordinate vehicle service around pet needs would create. We really enjoyed their dining room, but it was only open for a few hours for lunch. I think I should’ve been able to be in it the whole time, with all that room to set up my laptop with unlimited Diet Pepsi refills. And if we’d had a dog, it could come in, too!
We are already enjoying our first stop immensely, as you/we knew would be true. Hopefully, it is a harbinger of things to come!
I’m so glad we were able to use a bit of that time while you were waiting at the dealership to plan our meetup this summer in Wisconsin, followed by winter in Florida. Yayyyyyy!!!!! Finally! As long as the reservation game doesn’t drive us mad in the meantime, we’re good!
PS (Raising my hand) Biosphere 1 is the Earth! Is my prize bacon??
We, too, were so glad to be able to hear your voice and firm up times we will be able to see it actually coming out of your cute face!
You get ALL THE BACON 😂
We’re also sorry we didn’t get another chance to hike, but we surely enjoyed the visits we did get! There is a very good chance we will take you up on the offer to moochdock at your place in the future!
Hope you recover quickly from your cold, because great places await in Death Valley, Utah, etc.! You really don’t want to be trying to appreciate the geologic wonders (and challenging trails) of the Utah Mighty 5 with a bad cold. Ask me how I know.
Thank you for the get-well wishes. Having a second cold in rapid succession messed with my head more than the actual illness, and I think it’s taking me longer to recover from the disbelief 😆
I will take a look at your upcoming stop & keep you posted on the possibility of a meet-up!
Boy, we are so glad we are finally out of that route planning business!
You have a pretty good eye of capturing the unusual and unique beauty of nature, the tree hugger and the out of place prickly pear.
We also saw a Cholla growing from a saguaro. Those little birdies are very busy!