Beautiful Sedona, Arizona

We spent yesterday in Sedona with Rachel & Ginger. Barry has some big deals in the works and could not leave for the day...poor guy! It was an overcast day and it did rain a little, but the area was still beautiful. The red rock formations in this area are absolutely spectacular. We had lunch at Oaxaca Restaurant and then did some shopping. When we left Sedona, Rachel suggested we go north of the town to the Oak Creek Canyon area. I was so pleased that it was Rachel's suggestion and not mine when I saw the bridge that Bob had to drive over. :-) He did really well going over the bridge and through the winding roads that followed. I may get him back to Colorado someday if he keeps improving on these mountain drives. We stopped at some booths that were selling Indian jewelry and had a treat at the Dairy Queen there. Then it was time to head back home and it started raining, although the sun was shining brightly at that time. I kept looking for a rainbow. Rachel spotted it and Bob pulled over so I could get pictures (he's getting so good at humoring me and my passion!) The pictures I'm posting are of Bell Rock, Snoopy Rock (Snoopy lying down with Woodstock on his nose), the gawd-awful bridge and the rainbow on the rocks. Have I mentioned lately that "THIS IS THE LIFE???"

Dolly Steamboat Ride

Yesterday was our cruise on the Dolly Steamboat at Canyon Lake. It was so breathtakingly beautiful that pictures can't do it justice. The weather was perfect, although I'm glad I took a jacket on the boat because it was pretty breezy on the upper deck. We actually saw some bighorn sheep. After going on the "Dolphin Cruise" in Florida last year and never seeing one dolphin I was a little skeptical. If you double click on the 3 bottom pictures with the rocky hills to enlarge them, you should be able to see the bighorn sheep. What an exciting sight that was!

After we got back to this area, we went to Barry & Rachel's for dinner. Rachel made a great dinner and we had such a nice visit. Victoria, their little granddaughter, kept everyone entertained. Their new home is gorgeous and they have such a nice family. I believe Rachel is going to go to Sedona with us on Friday. That should be another great excursion in this scenic area.

Canyon Lake & Tortilla Flat

Since we have tickets to go on the Dolly Steamboat at Canyon Lake tomorrow, Bob decided we should drive out there today to see how long it will take us. We had no idea that the route there went through the Superstition Mountains and was curvy, hilly, etc. Even though it's only 16 miles from here, it took over 40 minutes to get there. Bob did really well driving through the mountains this time and we decided to go another 2 miles to Tortilla Flat. It's an interesting little town (Population: 6) with a few old buildings and a neat restaurant. We were going to go even further to the Roosevelt Dam, but the road after Tortilla Flat was really severe and it was several miles away. The scenery was absolutely beautiful and I, of course, was snapping pictures the entire time. I'm posting some of my favorites. You just know I'll have a bunch more tomorrow after the boat ride.

Apache Junction/Mesa, AZ

We arrived in Apache Junction on Thursday in the early afternoon. We will be here for a month. After getting set-up we went to visit our friend Ginger and the 3 of us went to Applebee's for dinner. Yesterday the 3 of us went to the "Swap Meet". It was really nice and HUGE! They had a lot of nice stuff, but since we don't really have room for much we didn't go crazy buying stuff. We'll definitely go back there before we leave this area. I'm posting a picture of Picacho Peak which we passed on the way here and one of the sunset here on Thursday. Today we are going to visit Barry & Rachel, my ex-brother-in-law and S-I-L. We haven't seen them in about 4 years, so we are looking forward to visiting with them. We have reservations to go on the "Dolly Steamboat" on Tuesday afternoon. It goes through Canyon Lake and the views and wildlife viewing are spectacular. Check it out at www.dollysteamboat.com Have I mentioned that THIS IS THE LIFE?

Bisbee, AZ and Fort Huachuca

Today we traveled south of Tombstone to Bisbee, AZ. It is an old
mining town. There is basically only one street in town and everything is built on the side of a mountain. It was pretty interesting. We were going to go on to Douglas, AZ after that, but we discovered that the main attractions there are only open Wed-Sun. On the way back we went to Fort Huachuca which is a very old military base that is still active and they have a couple of museums there honoring the Buffalo Soldiers and the Military Intelligence Division. It is still an Intelligence base and there is a large white blimp which flies overhead patrolling the US/Mexican border in that area. It was another beautiful day and the scenery was great. Tomorrow will be our last day in this area. On Thursday we will be heading to Mesa/Apache Junction area for a month. It's a tough life...but somebody's got to do it! :-)

International Wildlife Museum & Trail Dust Town

We spent Saturday in Tucson. We started our day at the International Wildlife Museum. It was interesting, but not something we would return to. We then went to In-N-Out Burger for lunch. Our friends from California had raved about In-N-Out and they were absolutely right. They even peel and cut the potatoes right there for their french fries. We left there and went toward the Pinnacle Peak Steakhouse at Trail Dust Town. We had gone to the restaurant 4 years ago with my cousin & his wife and wanted to try it again. On the way there we found the airplane graveyard that is in the movie "Con Air". It was amazing...mile after mile of airplanes in various stages of neglect. We were going to tour the Pima Air & Space Museum, but it was too close to closing time to do a complete tour. We then went to Trail Dust Town , which started out as a movie set, and visited some of the shops and attractions. We had dinner at Pinnacle Peak Steakhouse and it was even better than we remembered. Bob had a 24 oz. t-bone steak and I was shocked that he didn't opt for the 32 oz. porterhouse. I had filet mignon which melted in my mouth. Excellent! After dinner we watched the shootout show, which was more of a comedy than drama. We left there and headed back to Benson. We watched another beautiful Arizona sunset on our way. The full moon just over the mountains was another breathtaking sight!

Saguaro National Park - West

After we left the studios, we went to the West section of Saguaro National Park. We were very disappointed in this park after going to the East section on Monday. It was not nearly as picturesque and the road was dirt...8 miles of a bumpy, holey, washboardy, dirt road. They do have petroglyphs in one area of the park. Bob took the camera on that trail and got the pictures of the petroglyphs and the mountain sunset. When I saw the trail was very steep and uneven, I was afraid to try it. I'm still paranoid about falling on my new knee and messing it up. So, here's Bob's photograpy...

Old Tucson Studios

We spent most of today at Old Tucson Studios, "Hollywood in the Desert". It was a really neat place and we enjoyed going in all the old buildings and watching the different shows that they put on. This is the place where many western movies have been filmed, including Rio Bravo, The Gunfight at the O.K. Corral and Tombstone. We took almost 700 pictures today at the Studios and at the West section of the Saguaro National Park...more about that later. Of all those pictures I just HAVE to share with you the pictures of Bob on stage at "Miss Kitty's Can-Can Show". He was called up on stage along with 2 other men. The next thing I knew they took him backstage and when he came out he had a blonde wig and a can-can dress on. One of the female dancers did make a comment about his cute legs. I could hardly take pictures I was laughing so hard at him. Here ya go...

Saguaro National Park

We left this morning to go into town to find a salon where I could get my hair cut. That's one of the hardest things about his lifestyle is finding a good hairdresser in a strange town. I lucked out and found a good one today. Anyway, I have learned to grab my camera every time we leave the campground because I never know where we will end up. Bob despises sitting around the campground and if he gets a chance to go somewhere he's all for it. So, I grabbed my camera and off we went to Benson, the next town from here. I get my hair cut and then Bob wants to go to Subway for lunch. We leave Subway and I can tell he's just itching to go somewhere. So, I get our GPS out to find something within a reasonable distance. We ended up going to Tucson to the Saguaro National Park - East (there are actually 2 parks that are about 30 miles apart and we ran out of time to go to the 2nd one today). Bob bought his Golden Age Passport for the National Parks when we were in Florida last winter, so all the National Parks are now free for us. What a great $10.00 investment - being an old fart does have it's rewards. I sure learned a lot about the Saguaro cacti and other things while we were there. For instance - it takes the Saguaros several decades to grow to 6' and they have such a small root system that they grown an "arm" in whatever direction they need it to balance the plant and keep it from falling over. I thought that was fascinating. The picture on the bottom right shows some baseball-sized holes in it which are made by Gila Woodpeckers and Gilded Flickers. The clouds were pretty low today and the Rincon Mountains were a great background.

When we left the park we drove Beaudry's RV Park and the Camping World store in Tucson. It was cool out today and it rained for about 1 1/2 minutes while we were on our way to the park.

It was another interesting day in our vagabond lives. With Bob around...who knows what tomorrow will bring!

Tombstone, Arizona

We spent most of today in Tombstone. It was a beautiful day and we really enjoyed seeing some of the things we missed on our last visit here. I'm posting pictures of Bob with Wyatt Earp, a street scene, the Earp Brothers and Doc Holliday. The reenactment of the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral was really entertaining and the guy that played Doc did an excellent job. We also enjoyed the Tombstone Courthouse, which is now a museum. For those of you have never been to Tombstone, this town is very much like it was back in the 1800's. They have done an excellent job of preserving the feel of the Old West.

It was pretty crowded today. Since all our days are Saturdays, I need to convince Bob to start planning these excursions on weekdays when most people are working (poor souls!).

We Are Finally in Arizona!

We arrived in St. David, AZ yesterday afternoon. It was a beautiful drive here and the campground is quite nice with a view of the mountains. We will be here a week and then go 7 miles up the road to another one of our membership parks for a week. We also had a view of the mountains at the park we stayed at in Deming, NM on Wednesday night. Since leaving Michigan in November we have had a lakefront lot, a golf resort lot and now 2 mountain view lots. This sure is a great way to live!!! We are only 15 miles north of Tombstone and we are planning to go there tomorrow. The 1st time we were there was on our way out of town and we really didn't have enough time to take it all in.

The top 2 pictures I've posted here are from the Texas Canyon in AZ. It's right at a rest area on I-10 in Benson, AZ, between the Little Dragoon Mountains on the north and the Dragoon Mountains on the south. The rock formations there are breathtaking and we appreciate Reid & Debbie giving us the tip to stop there and appreciate them. We're not sure why we haven't seen them before when passing through that area, unless it was dark when we went through. I had a very hard time picking just a couple of pictures of this area to post here (I took well over 100 pictures - thank goodness for digital cameras!)

The pictures below are from the park we stayed at in Deming, NM. The sunrise over the mountains picture was taken from the front door of our 5th wheel (I was still in my jammies) and the roadrunner in the tree was right next to our campsite. I've been trying to catch a glimpse of a roadrunner for years and not only did we see this one, but we saw another on the ground as we pulled out of the park. I've been keeping my camera on my lap as we travel and I've caught some really interesting sights.