Brett and Nadia are driving from L.A. to Bisbee, AZ with their newly renovated vintage trailer. Our plans are to meet up with them in this artsy, little town. While we wait for them to start their journey, we decided to hang out around Tucson, AZ. for a week or so.

Monday, Jan. 30

Gilbert Ray Campground has a couple of days available, so we’re going there before moving to Catalina S.P. for 4 days.

Tuesday, Jan. 31

On the dog walk this morning, Christy jerked Carol and caused Carol to twist her knee. She hobbled back to the Ham and started popping Advil.

I found a 700-foot mountain that needed climbing and spent the afternoon working on my cardio.

Click on this link to climb a mountain. https://photos.app.goo.gl/jqVFP1rw2AMCuvfr6

Wednesday, Feb. 1

Catalina S.P. is just on the other side of Tucson, so we got to eat lunch at our new site after a few supply stops. The forecast of a cool, rainy day proved wrong. We got to enjoy a pleasant afternoon.

Thursday, Feb. 2 (Ground Hog’s Day)

Carol tried to hike this morning, but her knee kept telling her to rest. Christy and I continued on without our hiking buddies.

I again left Lois, Carol, and the dogs to enjoy the sun while I biked on the Nature Trail. My legs were still tired from the mountain climb and we were going out for an early dinner, so I made it a short ride.

Dinner tonight was to celebrate our 49th wedding anniversary. We ordered from a highly-rated Persian restaurant and had a wonderful meal in the Ham. Later on, Carol and I continued celebrating by breaking up pieces of fudge brownies and adding them to our bowls of Ben and Jerry’s New York super fudge chocolate ice cream. It’s a good thing that we only do this once a year.

Friday, Feb. 3

Carol had been trying to find somewhere to go after our reservation here was over on Sunday. The Tucson Gem Show is going on right now and it draws over 65,000 people from around the globe. She couldn’t find anywhere to stay. Late in the evening, she checked the Catalina site for about the sixth time and found that a site had opened up for five days in a row on Sunday. 

Saturday, Feb. 4

Early this morning, I observed a large pool of water under our RV. After some investigation under the Ham, I found water trickling out of the overflow of the freshwater tank. But this was impossible. I had allowed the freshwater tank to nearly drop to empty because I knew we had a water hookup at our site. Carol checked the levels on all of our tanks and found that the fresh water tank was full. I had no answer for that. Hours of Googling informed me that a check valve had broken allowing the city water from our site hookup to fill our tank. I turned off the spigot and ordered a new part from Amazon. At least we had water.

By 11:00 it was already starting to get hot. It’s amazing how hot the sun is in the Southwest. Before lunch, I biked to the main trailhead to attend a nature presentation. Because of the fabulous weather, I think all of Tucson had decided to show up too. With the trails and picnic areas full of locals, I returned to the Ham for some peaceful sunbathing with the girls. The hot sun soon made Lois go inside. Carol and I also got hot but moved to the almost cold shade. It starts to cool off around 4:00 pm here and we were happy for that to happen.

Sunday, Feb. 5

Before moving to our new site, we ventured out into the city of Oro Valley for some shopping and lunch. With another overcrowded park, brilliant sunshine, and warm temperatures, we did a boring repeat of yesterday. At suppertime, the campground host came knocking at our door. She informed us that the pumps that supply water to the entire park had failed. There was no water at our site or anywhere else in the park. Thank goodness for yesterday’s malfunction of our check valve – we had water in our tank.

The moonrise over the mountains tonight was special.