Geocaching

We met Wilt and Barbara Greenwood (from Richmond) and Chuck and Charlotte Hoelzel, who were all staying in Benson Arizona, for a day of Geocaching. We were excited about going out with the pros (both couples have found over 2,000 caches whereas we just passed 100).

Unfortunately we picked a very windy, cold day. After finding a few caches, including one at a former missile silo, we called it quits.

If you are not familiar with the sport, Geocaching is an entertaining adventure game for gps users. The basic idea is to have people set up caches all over the world and share the locations of these caches on the internet. GPS users can then use the location coordinates to find the caches. It sounds simple, however, people can be quite creative in hiding the caches which makes finding them challenging.

There are lots of geocaches in the Tucson area, so we enjoyed doing a little searching when we out in various areas of town. One day we almost got lost while geocaching on some back roads. There are lots of trails in the desert that are not on the map

Flooding in Tucson?

For days, the weather men were talking about the big rains in Tucson (reminds us of how everyone goes to the grocery store when snow is in the forecast in Richmond). We received less than a half inch where we were staying, however, Mount Lemon had 8 inches. Naturally the water on the mountain has to flow downhill, which results in some flooding. We drove around to see a "wash" with water. We saw a few areas where the road was closed due to flooding. We were amused by the "stupid motorist" law in Tucson where you can be ticketed if you do something stupid such as drive through standing water.

Boneyard

We took a bus tour of the "Boneyard". This is a huge aerospace storage and maintenance facility adjoining Davis-Monthan Air Force Base which provides a service to all branches of the US military (over 4,200 stored aircraft) . The idea is that aircraft can be stored for both parts and to be in reserve for future service in the event that they are needed. The warm climate provides an excellent place for storing the aircraft. The soil is hard, so the aircraft can be parked on it without getting stuck. The windows are covered with a special paint to keep the sun out and prevent damage to the interior.

Pima Air Museum

The Pima Air and Space Museum is one of the largest in the world (over 275 aircraft). There large staff of volunteers consisted of retired military pilots who have personal stories to share. We saw all types of aircraft including B52 bombers and retired Air Force One (the plane used by Kennedy and Johnson).

Arizona Sonora Desert Museum

Our friends Larry and Gerry Clark joined us for a visit to the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum. It's a world-renowned zoo, natural history museum and botanical garden, all in one place. It's unique in that it features animals and plants that are native to the desert including every kind of desert plant imaginable and native wildlife including rattlesnakes, bobcats, javelinas, and pumas.

Sentinel Park

We hiked to the top of Sentinel Peak which provided a great panoramic view of Tucson. When we were enjoying a picnic lunch, a road runner tried to steal Carolyn's sandwich .

We also toured the downtown area including the Presidio San Agustin del Tucson, a restored adobe fortress. We did a little geocaching which led us to these interesting areas in the city.

Tombstone

A day of sightseeing with Larry and Gerry Clark. Visited Tombstone - a renowned old mining camp. The town is fixed up as it would have been in the 1880s including horse drawn carriages and reenactments of gunfights. Saw the Bird Cage Theater and Boothill Graveyard which contains the graves of the town's famous and infamous citizens.

Copper Mine

We toured a working open-pit copper mineral mine at ASARCO. You could see how copper ore is mined in the pits and how it is processed in the mill to extract copper minerals. The mine is a quarter mile deep, 2 miles from north to south, and 2 miles from east to west About 6 times the amount of earth moved to build the Panama canal has been mined there. You can see tailing's from the mine for miles along the interstate.

The trucks used to move the dirt are huge - their capacity is over 240 tons and tires are over 11 feet in diameter ( click on the photo to enlarge it, those spots are trucks over a mile away ). The price of a replacement tire made us feel like we had gotten a good deal when we replaced the motor home tires.

Titan Missile Museum

We visited the Titan Missile Museum which is the only publicly accessible Titan II missile site in the nation. We toured the underground missile site. Saw the 3-ton blast doors, the 8-foot thick silo walls, and an actual Titan II missile in the launch duct. We experienced a simulated launch when Carolyn sat at the control center and turned the key to "launch" the missile.

Mann experienced a bit of nostalgia watching the videos from the Cold War videos to "Duck and Tuck"

Saguaro National Park

The saguaro cactus only grows in southern Arizona, in California along the Colorado River and in northern Mexico. It can live more than 200 years, attaining heights of 30-40 feet. You can see a lot of saguaro cactus in their natural habitat at the Saguaro National Park in Tucson. The Ranger led walk through the park brings lots of insight and understanding of the topography, climate etc.

After visiting the park, we went to the top of Mount Lemon. Where we were comfortable in short sleeves at Saguaro park, there was snow on the mountain (they had had 1.5 feet of snow the week before). The terrain is interesting in that it is desert at the bottom of the mountain and evergreen trees at the top.

Cactus Country RV Park - Tucson Arizona

We finally arrived at the Cactus Country RV park in Tucson Arizona where we will be staying for the next month. It was good to see our motor homing friends Larry and Gerry Clark who are spending several months at the park. Larry gave us a tour of the area.

Deming New Mexico

Things looked much better in the town of Deming New Mexico than they did when we were here in 2002. We went to Rockhound State Park where we walked the trail looking for fossils.

Tire Blow Out

We got an early start with the intent of covering some miles. Unfortunately 40 miles later, in Denton Texas, our recently replaced tire blew. Fortunately we were able to drive down the road to Camping World. Unfortunately it was Sunday and between Mann and our roadside assistance provider making numerous phone calls, either the tire dealers were closed or did not have a tire to fit the motor home.

The nice thing about traveling in a motor home is that we are self sufficient, so we spent the night in the parking lot at Camping World. Mann located some tires and someone who could install them on Monday. Finally at 5:15 pm we were back on the road with 6 brand new tires.

Stink Bug Attack!

After several long cold days on the road, we relaxed a couple days on Lake Texoma in northern Texas. Spanky wanted to join Carolyn outside, so she took him out on his leash. Now don't get any false impressions; Spanky goes where he wants to go which includes under picnic tables and up trees. Spanky was having a great time chasing anything that moved until he encountered a stink bug. The stink bug sprayed him in the eye and Spanky frantically ran back into the motor home. Mann ran water in his eye, which you can imagine how much he enjoyed, and fortunately he was fine. Now if he only learned anything from this experience.

Fort Smith Arkansas

We spent 2 nights in Fort Smith Arkansas at the Corp of Engineers Snake Creek campground. I am sure that this place is packed in the summer. The campsites are right on the water with a huge marina nearby - great setting. Unfortunately in the freezing temperatures in January, we were the only campers in the campground! So much for a hot shower in the morning as the water pump was frozen; fortunately it thawed out later in the day.

Mann had sold his satellite internet system to a man in Kansas who drove down to the campground to pick up the system. Mann gave him better training than he would received elsewhere. He walked away a happy customer and Mann was pleased with his sale.

Awful day on the road

Awoke early today. Time zone changed yesterday and we weren't aware of it. Thought we were getting up at 6:30 am; Had a tire blow out, left inside rear. We don't carry a spare due to weight and space. The long and short of it all, we limped along to an area just outside of Little Rock where there were several truck stops and tire shops. No new tires of the size needed were available. One of the shops found a lightly used tire of the correct size for only $100 installed. Of course, we naively jumped at the opportunity for such savings. New used tire mounted, we forged ahead. If only I had known .............

2008 Starts Early

We left home in Virginia a little earlier than usual for this year's winter months. On December 31, 2007, Mann, Carolyn and Spanky took off in Shamu (our 36 foot diesel motor home) with our Jeep Liberty in tow. Our first concern was weather since we planned to head west on I40 and there is frequent snow fall along this route, particularly around Oklahoma City and Albuquerque, NM. Our plan is to spend a month in Tucson, AZ, then west to Pomona, CA for the Family Motor Coach Association International rally.

We started off the new year with breakfast at Bojangles for our favorite gravy biscuits. I think we were their first customers of the new year and we came equipped with our shiny Bojangles coffee mugs that Katie gave us for Christmas. As Rachel Ray would say "YUM".