I grew up in a town with a fairgrounds, and while The Great Geauga County Fair was the much-anticipated summer’s end event, we local kids spent countless hours in the fairgrounds when it was not in use. We rode our bikes there, climbed high into the empty grandstands, walked through the horse barns where some horses were kept year-round, played football in the snow, and many of us had our first driving lessons there. As teens, we may or may not have sneaked out of our houses at night to meet up there and work out our teenage angst. Hi, Mom!
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| My brother, me, cousin, and aunt captured on the Tilt-A-Whirl for the local paper! |
As fond as I was of that fairgrounds, I never wanted to live in it, yet here we have been living in this one, the Pima County Fairgrounds (PCFG) in Tucson for three and a half weeks at the time of this writing, with another three and a half stretching ahead of us. Given our ability to plop ourselves in much more beautiful surroundings, what are we doing in a fairgrounds, for crying out loud? I can explain, and as the title suggests, I’m going to do so in a series of posts because seven weeks is a lot to cover. My verb tenses and the chronology are going to be all sorts of messed up, but we’re gonna get through it, I promise.
The boring, albeit important, parts of the explanation are a good monthly rate, full hookups, great internet, plenty of OATV, the ability to get some home repairs done, direct mail service, and proximity to grocery and other shopping or entertainment. Snore!
Our arrival was at the tail end of an unseasonable cold snap, and a few inches of snow was still melting off. Soon enough, though, the winds died down, the skies cleared, and temps returned to winter-normal for Tucson. If you’re reading this from the depths of the Polar Vortex that is gripping much of the U.S., and you hate us a little bit, I understand.
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| “Not scenic” is an understatement |
The grounds themselves aren’t particularly scenic, especially compared to some of the other places we’ve stayed, but it has its plusses.
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| 1.5 mile trail interspersed with pain stations |
The nature part is a newly-planted cactus garden at the back, complete with plant identification signs. We made good use of this for running and strength training on days we didn’t go out for hiking and biking.
You remember our new friends Kevin and Laura of Chapter3Travels, don’t you? They arrived a week into our stay for a week’s stay of their own, and purely by chance, they were assigned a space almost directly next door to us. We all pretended not to notice what the other ones were doing for the first day and a half, but it was hard because they were right there. Or maybe that was just us. Laura and I cracked ourselves up texting daily from 50 yards apart before the cavalcade of visiting and Thor-wrassling began, starting with dinner at our place. You’ll have to take my word for it, though, since we were terrible bloggers and neglected to take any photos.
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| Mission San Xavier del Bac |
Because another full-time RVer had recommended it to her, Laura made us drive her to see this famous mission and told Kevin to stay behind and sweat over a hot sous vide machine, making us dinner. Just kidding! About the forcible chauffeuring and cooking anyhow. Kevin really did stay behind to cook, but he loves doing that, and we surely loved what he dished up! While he did that, the three of us had a good time exploring the still-active mission and its grounds. Because Kevin had made a boat-load of food but mostly because we’re enchanting company, they had us over a couple times. We so enjoyed the conversations, the food, and playing with Thor.
As well as all the new friends we’ve made over the last few months, some old friends recently retired to the area, and we met up with them for a great catching-up lunch.
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| us, another Kevin! and Teresa |
You’ll get to see them again for more fun in Volume II.
At the end of our second week, we waved a temporary goodbye to Chapter3 who were returning to Catalina, and we took the rig into the shop for routine maintenance. While that was being done, we treated ourselves to breakfast out at the Bisbee Breakfast Club, and TBG surprised me with a trip to the Sonora Desert Museum. It’s a beautiful zoo of native critters!
One of the big weekend fairground events was the Tucson Taco Fiesta, and Chapter3 was returning to meet some other full-time RVer friends for it, and they invited us along. Though I had gotten e-tickets, TBG and I just walked across the grass and right into the festival from our new campsite at the back of the property. Then we waited amidst the throngs on the midway while the three other couples were nearly strip-searched by security at the front entrance and issued wrist bands. TBG and I spent the afternoon hiding our naked wrists and kicking ourselves for buying tickets. It was a fun time, though, listening to a series of live bands, watching little kids rolling around in giant hamster balls, and standing in outrageously long food lines which were oddly conducive to chatting with and getting to know everyone. Fun group!
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| Rachel & Chris of itsawanderfulrvlife, us, Shea & Erin of livingmilebymile, and Kevin & Laura |
Thanks to a heads-up from Laura, we were prepared for the total lunar eclipse the next night, which luckily was perfectly clear even if my photos weren’t.
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| Magnificent Sanguineous Lupinus Night-Orb |
It seems an unlikely place to encounter any wildlife, but I expectantly put out the hummingbird feeder after we had moved to our second site, and a few days later, a little one showed up. I decided to not feel bad for taking away their food source when it comes time to move along because it’s really like a flower from which they drink that only blooms for a certain period of time, right?
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| Silhouetted sunset sipper |
On one of our first evening walkabouts, we heard an owl hooting high up in one of the trees and then watched as it glided out silently to sit in plain sight on a light post. On subsequent evening walks, the owl hunt was on, and we saw a pair of them several times. So interesting that they live at the fairgrounds!
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| Great Horned Owl perched on the loudspeaker tower. |
Volume I concludes with brunch at a second Bisbee Breakfast Club location, where we bid farewell to Chapter3 and were too busy stuffing our faces to take a pic of ourselves (again!) Don’t be sad, though, you’ll see them in Volume II, and we’re hoping to see them again in New Mexico before too long.
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| until then… |
Coming soon PCFG Volume II: Roaming and Rolling!
COMMENTS
You guys are just having too much fun with Kevin and Laura! Kevin
introduced us to sous vide cooking and Steve had been using it for our
steak and chicken ever since.
I did not see a picture of the inside of the mission, did you check it out or did you join a guided tour? Hmmm
Chasing Dirt Ha, yes the PFCG is not scenic or secluded, that’s for sure, but the price, proximity to hiking and amenities, and free entertainment made it very tolerable (though we were there a bit longer than originally planned.) The newspaper clipping is actually my aunt; my failed attempt at a joke makes it seem like it’s my mom (who I really am the spitting image of, so it all works out!) We DID have too much fun with Kevin and Laura, and we were sad to part ways, but we know we haven’t seen the last of them by a long shot. We did go inside the mission, but our photos weren’t the best. We didn’t do a formal tour, although we could hear a lot of the guides’ informative speeches as we looked around inside. I loved the courtyard — I am a sucker for the adobe courtyards of southwest architecture— and was sad there was no public access to it. Understandable, though. We were lucky to have such a gorgeous day to visit!
Thanks for letting us know about another cheap option for longer stays!
I forgot that fairgrounds have RV sites. We also follow the same
bloggers & hope to meet in person some day!
Chasing Dirt Yes! We also had our covert methods of sneaking into the fair. Paying was for city-folk, haha! Fairgrounds RVing is a great option, and my old hometown grounds even has spaces now, too, where we will stay when we go back to visit family. Thanks for following along and taking the time to comment. It would be great to meet up out here!
Anyway, I’ll agree with you that the fairgrounds are not much to look at, but given the full hook ups, the price, the convenience, and the endless entertainment from weekend events (Guns! Horsies! Tacos! Owls!), I would definitely stay there again. And I’m super glad we all ended up there at the same time because it means we got to actually hang out. And because we all got to hang out, I only had to eat 6 pounds of carnitas rather than 10 pounds of them. So, win win!!
Seriously, it was awesome getting to know you guys and we look forward to seeing you again in the not too distant future. In the meantime, we’ll just have to text one another from miles away rather than meters. No biggie. 🙂
Chasing Dirt No, we really could not be any worse at getting group photos, especially since we had at least five cameras with us at any given time!
I almost mentioned the fact that you were still eating carnitas at the time of my posting 😆
It has been a true joy to meet and spend time with you, with what we hope are many fun meet-ups to come. As you say, we will have to content ourselves with texting for now, which isn’t as good as the real thing, but damn, we have some funny exchanges! If the next few months are like the last few, time is going to fly by. Enjoy the world until then, my friends, and we’ll see you on down the road!
You guys have obviously been having a blast. So many fun things to do in Tucson, and even better is sharing the adventures with good friends. In all of our visits to Tucson, we’ve yet to stay at the fairgrounds, but it actually looks like a good option for long-term stays. Especially if you don’t have to be strip-searched to attend the taco fiesta, LOL!
Isn’t the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum fabulous? We’ve been several
times, but have never seen the cats lounging around like you did. Your
photos are fantastic!
And I love your photo of your mom and family on the Tilt-a-Whirl. You look so much like your beautiful mom!
Chasing Dirt I just love that owls live here! Besides them and my little hummingbird friend, we regularly see another vermilion flycatcher darting along the chain link fence tops.
The museum was wonderful, and we were so lucky to have a sunny, but not too hot, day that brought all the critters out to sunbathe. I loved that iguanas freely roamed and could be seen on the rocks of many other animals’ enclosures, and, of course, we could have stayed all day in the hummingbird habitat. I am looking forward to Ramsey Canyon Preserve in another month or so (I’m guessing you’ve been there?)
Isn’t that family photo a hoot? That fair is still going strong every year, and now I have a hankering for Swiss cheese on a stick and some vinegar fries!