Moving On From Tucson

We headed a bit further west last week to Yuma, AZ and have now been here for a week. Unfortunately, I started getting a head cold the day we got here and after having it for a week, I am feeling better but Tim now has it. I had to share, right? With both of us being sick, we haven’t done very much yet in Yuma, but we did enjoy our last couple of weeks in Tucson and had a nice stop in Why, AZ on our way here.

loved that i caught the sunset reflection on the side of the rv

I have a few more pictures from the Sonoran Desert Museum to share as well as some more beautiful sunsets from our site in Tucson. We are glad that we purchased the annual membership to the Desert Museum. We really got our money’s worth with 6 visits there. It was our favorite spot in the Tucson area; definitely a magical place. I hope you enjoy the photos.

up close and personal at the ranger show

Another place that we also enjoyed was Sabino Canyon Recreation Area. This canyon is a desert oasis located at the base of the Santa Catalina Mountains. I remembered visiting this area when we visited Tucson years earlier in the summertime, and even then there was water flowing down the creek and pooling between the rocks. The canyon is very beautiful and worth a visit. While I took the shuttle ride up through the canyon, Tim and Trent walked the nature trail and visited the displays in the visitors center. The shuttle ride was about an hour long with a 10 minute stop at the top. You could get off at one of the many stops along the way and hike for awhile, then catch another shuttle back but since they were waiting, I just enjoyed the ride and took in the scenery. I didn’t get to see any wildlife on my ride but Tim and Trent got to see a roadrunner while they were waiting for me.

beautiful mountain views as we started up through the cany9ojn

sabino creek flows down through the canyon

tim got a great shot of the roadrunner he saw.

In case you are tired of desert photos, I thought I would share some from our visit to the Titan Missile Silo Museum. During the Cold War, from 1965 to 1987, there were 54 Titan Missile II sites on alert across the United States. The Titan Missile Museum near Tucson is the only site open to the public and it allows you to re-live the time when a threat of nuclear war between the U.S. and the Soviet Union was a reality. The tour of the silo was fascinating and provided a background on the missile capability as well as what an alert would have been like for the servicemen working there. The Cold War was definitely a scary time and it was a bit disconcerting re-living some of that fear. They played through an alert and the steps it took to launch the missile from its underground silo. The guide went through the steps and two men from our tour group acted as the launch commanders to complete the sequence to launch the missile. These weapons are now all decommissioned but for more than two decades these complexes stood on alert 24/7 heightening the treat of nuclear war or preventing Armageddon; depending on how you looked at it. If you are ever in Tucson, this museum is definitely worth a visit.

the control center and the alert code books

our tour guide explaining the function of the control center

the missile in the silo, it is deactivated of course

this gigantic thick dook closed off an secured the entrance to the silo and command center

Other than that, we spent the rest of our time in Tucson at the RV park, enjoying the weather, socializing with the neighbors and taking advantage of the activities in the park. They had another band for a Valentine’s Dance the weekend before we left, which was a lot of fun. This band played good dance tunes from the 60’s and 70’s and reminded me of high school dances.

we attended mass here again on our last sunday in tucson. thought you would enjoy seeing mission san xavier del bac one more time

I really liked the park and activities offered but we probably would not stay there again. There was a lot of noisy vehicles racing and spinning around either in the desert or at the end of the road outside of the park most nights. Often the noise woke us at 3 AM which was ridiculous. Even though the park reported it, there wasn’t anything they could do about it and it didn’t seem that the police did anything to chase them away. Between the noise at night and the Air Force fighter jets flying overhead every day, it was quite noisy there most of the time. It is a shame since the park itself, the managers, staff and residents were all really nice and it was a well run park.

We were supposed the leave on 2/15 and head to Yuma, but some people suggested that we stop at Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument while we were out this way. I checked the map and it wasn’t exactly along the way but not too far off of our route. Instead of one 4 hour drive day, we could have 2, 2.5 hour drive days and spend some time in another national park. It seemed worth it to us and since the weather was good, we decided to go for it..

I was able to find a small RV park for $30 for the night with full hook up in Why, AZ that was just a little north of the entrance to the park. We left early enough to get to Why by noon which gave us plenty of time to spend the day enjoying the park. Even though it was called Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, we mostly saw saguaro cactus on our ride to the visitor’s center. We learned that this is a large park with 2 scenic loop drives, one which takes about 2 hours and one that takes about 4 hours, After spending a couple of hours in the car getting there, we didn’t really want to take that long of a drive. The ranger recommended the nature trail right outside the visitor’s center and another trail that left from the parking lot that took you across the desert to the campground. Since there was a ranger talk at 2 PM, we decided to do both of those trails, then come back for the ranger presentation. It was a perfect way to enjoy the park for us on this trip.

in case you don’t know what an organ pipe cactus looks like, here are a couple of big ones near the visitor’s center

there were some huge saguaro’s on the trail we took through the desert

organ pipe catus were growing at the top of the ridge

Perhaps we can go another time and spend a couple of days so we could do the scenic drives. The trail through the desert was very scenic and provide an up close view of a variety of cactus although the organ pipe cactus seem to grow more on the top of the ridges. We saw a few lizards and some birds but no other wildlife on our hike. The ranger talk was pretty informative although he focused on saguaro cactus and some wildlife that can be found in the area. He had a good story about the bobcat’s in the area, especially how they climb and sit on the top of the saguaro’s looking for prey. He had a picture that proved they did this. Glad we didn’t see that on our walk!

The next day, we headed into Yuma. This is a smaller city than Tucson and seems to be pretty spread out. The area isn’t quite as scenic as Tucson, pretty much a flat desert landscape although the foothills and mountains can be seen in the distance. This is a very popular snowbird location. We have ridden up and down the road our RV park is on and there are 55+ aged qualified RV parks all up and down this road. It seems to be the biggest business in the area other than farming. I have heard many of the vegetables we eat in the U.S. are grown here. So far the weather is perfect, sunny days with a very light breeze and cool evenings but not too cold at night.

We are staying at an Encore park, Araby Acres RV Park that is part of our Thousand Trails/ Trails Collection membership. This is a very active park, with daily activities and entertainment. The neighbors are all very friendly and have invited us to a wine tasting event, with a band and dancing last Friday afternoon, then a block party on our street on Wednesday afternoon. Even though I had a cold, since the activities were outside, we went and just stayed at the edge so we didn’t get too close to anyone. Didn’t want to share our germs. There is a dance tomorrow night that is inside, so I am hoping Tim is feeling better enough to attend,

One of the neighbors told us that they enjoy it here so much that they can be here for a month and use less than a half tank of gas. Other than going to the store for groceries or to the hardware store, there is so much going on here, they have no need to leave the park. I could see us enjoying this type of environment in a couple of years when we get tired of traveling all the time. We have a few places that we want to see in the area and we have a weekend visit to San Diego planned while we are here so I will have much more to tell you about in the next blog post.

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