Travel Tuesday: Big City Life

What a sight to fly into Seattle with it covered in snow!

Going to Phoenix to visit friends took some unexpected turns this year. For the last several years we have parked in front of my friend's house for about a week. This year, however, there was a complaint and so we discovered that parking big rigs on city streets is not allowed at all in Phoenix. Who knew? Often we can park for 3 days in different towns, but here, not at all. The very kind officer who showed up to let us know was sorry to bother us, but explained the rules. Since we were leaving the next day, he said he'd put in his report that he had contacted us and that we were leaving the next day. It was kind of him to not insist we move right away.

Did I mention all the shoveling I did?! This was before the additional 4".

After the second (3rd?) snow. A ruler wasn't long enough!     

        Jerry then moved over to a casino in the Peoria area for a week there while I flew back to Washington State to spend some time with my daughter and grandchildren.
      I didn't expect to get snowed in! It was fun, but I was disappointed that I didn't get to see anyone else while I was up there. Snow, more snow, even more snow....! And the run to Costco to prepare for said snow was an unexpected adventure. Who knew that store could hold so many people? Or that those amazing checkers could crank everyone through so fast?! Double lines reaching the back of the store and beyond, yet I was only there about an hour. It turned out to be worth it, since we did indeed get dumped on! We had some fun walks in the snow, making snow angels, playing in the snow and trying to make a snow man with snow that was drier than I ever remember it being. Until the rain started, that is! Then there were wet and cold hands and feet and sopping clothes. Ah, I remember that feeling from childhood of hands that burned and tingled as they warmed up!
  It was beautiful and I was glad to not have to try to go anywhere in all of it. I can't go so far as to say I've missed snow by spending my winters in the Southwest, but I did enjoy it while I was there.
    Since we weren't done in the Phoenix area, Jerry scouted around to find other options for the rest of our time there. He found a wonderful place at Lake Pleasant, right on the water. So we enjoyed our week there even though it rained several of the days. We had friends join us for lunch at the Marina Diner and then returned to our rig to play cards the rest of the afternoon which was fun.

Lake Pleasant Marina, the lake, our view, enjoying sunshine again.

  The next day we went to church with some friends we've known for years from our old church and it was great getting together with them, being blessed by the music, the good teaching and the presence of God we felt there. Then off to lunch at a great Mexican restaurant where I managed to find something I could eat without problems.
  Off we went the next day to Tucson, settling in to an RV Park for a change. It was the closest place to the friends we wanted to visit and for an unbeatable price. Since it was so cold that week, we were quite thankful to have electricity. I felt pretty pampered!
  We enjoyed the visits we had with our friends, eating at their homes, eating out. Getting together with old friends and even some new ones. We are blessed with such great friends!
   Not only was the weather very cold in Tucson (it got down to 24 one night) but we woke up one morning to snow on the truck! That was unexpected. It also rained there so much the dirt roads in the RV Park turned to lakes and mud. We were content to take a day off and rest up on the worst day. It started to dry out by the time we were on our way to our next location.
    I enjoy Tucson, not only to visit friends, but also to stock up on supplies and get to some of their specialty stores like the Food Conspiracy Co-op that sells things that I can't find in a Sprouts store. Meeting up with our new friends there made it even more fun.
  After all that Big City life, we were ready to head off to Yuma Foothills to meet up with the Boondocker group on the Arizona Trust Land, and to celebrate a 50th Wedding Anniversary of friends from our home park. That was a fun gathering and we were able to see many friends from home who winter in Yuma.

Tucson camping

sunset turning the Catalina mountains to pink.

After leaving Phoenix, we went back to Tucson and stayed at Catalina State Park for a few days. Jerry's friend and one-time next door neighbor from gradeschool is living part of the year in Oro Valley, and we wanted to spend a bit more time with he and his wife and see his house. Just before we left Phoenix, the truck started acting up and even though Jerry replaced the cap and rotor, it still wasn't running smoothly. We decided to go ahead and go to Tucson and see about getting it fixed there. We're getting pretty good at finding decent repair places! We love the online reviews. They help quite a bit. We got it fixed at Oro Valley Automotive. They were quick and it runs great now.

Our campsite at this beautiful park.

    In the park we saw a couple of Roadrunner birds, a couple of Jack rabbits--such long ears!--and some small rodents that make a funny clicking/squeaking sound, pound their feet and nibble on the grasses. We took several walks around the campground enjoying the view and checking out the different RVs that were there. We enjoyed the shore power and the AC while we were there as temps got into the low 90s.

  Not only did Neil  and his wife Tammy feed us dinner twice, but they encouraged us to swim in their backyard pool, and they loaned us one of their cars while we had repairs done, It was a fun visit, even the adventure of trying to catch the gecko that their cat had brought inside! They are fast little critters.

From Tucson, we begin our meaderings back to Olympia, WA. Although we are not really in a hurry to get back to the rain, we have some tabs to deal with on our vehicles which gives us a date to aim for. Plus we have things on our lot we want to work on and family to see. We are taking a different route northward this time, so it will be interesting to see the differences.