Mesa

Our friends Craig & Fran from Harrison Hot Springs are now living here in Mesa for 6 months of the year. They purchased a very comfortable home in a nice looking park. They were showing and telling us all about what it has to offer. They have it all!! I don't know how anyone could not enjoy themselves living in such an active place. If you didn't it sure would be your own fault for not joining in on activities. WE called a friend (Duke) who lives in Delta just to say hi from Craig's as it was her who let us know where Craig & Fran were living.

Dennis & Myrna got a hold of Nathan, Dennis's cousin Brian's son. He came and picked them up and they spent most of the afternoon and evening with him, going for dinner to Bill Johnson's Big Apple Mesa. It was a steak house with sawdust on the floor and the staff all wore guns (fake) on their hips.
This morning Irene spotted a coupon in a paper for one free breakfast with the purchase of the other, so we decided to go out for breakfast. Dennis & Myrna came as well and to our surprise it turned out to be the same steak house that they were at the evening before. After returning to the motorhome I washed the Trike and made it look a little better as we had been riding in the rain in Tucson.
Craig & Fran came over after lunch and spent a couple hours visiting with us. A lot of old stories were told and also a few new ones. We had a great visit with them and did up a video while they were here. Looking forward to visiting with them this spring when they get home so that we can chat about Arizona.
Irene & I decided to do a BBQ for dinner tonight so we took out the frozen Alligator meat that we had purchased in Homosassa, Florida. Wow! did it ever turn out good. We had it before in cafe's and enjoyed it. This was the first time that we cooked it ourselves and I must say we did a good job of it.
Dennis & Myrna's highlight for the day was taking the Thoroughbred Trike out for a test drive. By the look on their faces they were very impressed. They went out for chinese dinner with Nathan.
Tomorrow morning we will be heading for Yuma and more adventures.

Two more great days in Tucson

Yesterday we left around 9:00 a.m. and headed out on a route that Dennis had plotted out, approximately a 130 mile loop south and east of Tucson. The weather was warm and the roads were good. We climbed to about 3900 feet from 2600 feet here in Tucson.
The route took us through some very interesting terrain from desert to high grasslands and then a lot of bush.
We stopped in a small town called Arivaca and looked around.
Irene bought some barbed wire Quail from one of the local artists and I got myself a jar of prickly pear cactus jelly. On our way into town we had spotted a small coffee shop with a lot of motorcycles out front so thats where we went back to for a break.
We continued on our ride and when we got back close to Tucson Irene & I led the ride to Stu & Barb Pomeroys as we had found their place the day before.

Today was a little different weather wise, we had showers!! Dennis & Myrna had decided to do another country ride and Irene & I decided to go to the Pima Flight & Space Museum. Their ride south west took them in a different direction from yesterday as they broke over the top of some of the high hills they saw a lot of grassland.
Sonoita was the small town that they came across and found a very unique Mesquite Bar B Q house.

They did up all the steaks and ribs over an open fire of Mesquite. As the rains came they cut the route short and headed back to the Motorhome.

Irene and I spent almost 5 hours at the museum and could have spent all day. We started out by taking the 1 hour guided bus ride around the 70 acre yard where they had all the airplanes parked.
It was very informative as the driver was an ex fighter pilot from the Vietnam war and was very enthused about it all. Our next stop was a flight simulator aboard an F18 doing a simulation of a battle in Desert Storm in Iraq.What a ride!!! You better not have eaten first as the ride does everything except turn you upside down. The ride only lasted 5 min and it was so exciting that Irene was surprised that it ended so soon. I told her it had to as we got hit by a missile and was losing hydraulic fluid and when we landed back on the aircraft carrier we hit very hard.
It was well worth going on. When we left we put on our rain gear and went out to take a closer look at the "grave yard of old airplanes". There are about 4400 USA forces airplanes of all makes parked in the desert at an Airforce base near by, if you look on Google Earth you can get a good look at what it looks like as it takes up many square miles.

The Sonora Desert

This morning the four of us met Stu & Barb Pomeroy at the Sonora Desert Museum at 8:30 a.m. and Barb had complimentary tickets available, was that ever nice of her. Thanks a lot. What a day it was, we could have spent the whole day there and still not seen it all. Stu & Barb have season passes and they come to the museum quite often so they have become very knowledgeable about the plants and animals there. Dennis and Myrna went with them touring around and Rick and I went with a regular tour guide. Wow did she know her stuff!
We watched a free fly which featured a raven, a barn owl and a hawk. Very impressive. Rick got some good pictures! While we were wandering around by ourselves he got a butterfly, a hummingbird and lots of great pictures of cactus.

They had a demo called "live and loose" which they showed us a gilamonster and a diamond back rattle snake. There were other creatures that live in the desert. This little coati in the tree is one of the desert animals we saw. We all learned a lot.

Tombstone

Three days on the road and we finally got back on the net. On the first day out of San Antonio we were still in Texas. Our stop for the night was in Van Horn. On the second day we stopped in El Paso and we had lunch at Rosa's Cantina, remember the song that Marty Robbins sang "El Paso".
What an experience it was in a real old part of town that was actually part of the old highway. The building was old and very run down looking, inside it had a lot of character. The new owner is fixing it up.

Our next stop was near Tombstone in the Tombstone Territorial RV camp, in the morning we went into town and did all the touristy things such as watching the shootout at the OK Corral, going on an underground silver mine tour "The Good Enough Mine" and having lunch at Big Nose Kates Saloon.

She was Doc Holidays girlfriend and Wyatt Earp was the Sheriff there. After taking a trolley tour of the Tombstone area we headed out and finished our day at Tucson where we are now camped at the Beaudry RV campground for four nights.

Last Day in San Antonio

This morning Rick and I caught a city bus and travelled downtown. The day was drizzly with rainy spells so we planned to spend most of our time indoors. We started out by catching a trolley bus and touring around part of the old city again. It is really interesting and you see other things you missed before. Then we went into the Buckhorn Saloon and Texas Rangers Museum and did the self tour. Wow was there a lot of history in there and the upstairs holds hundreds of mounted birds and animals from all over the world, not just Texas. We sat at the saloon bar and ordered and drink and then lunch. It was good and really felt like a wild west saloon atmosphere. When we came out it was raining so we headed down to St. Marys St. and caught the No. 42 bus back to the campground. Tonight there is a pot luck supper here which the four of us plan to attend.