Windowless in Tucson!!!!!

It has been a while since we have driven in “big city” traffic so Tucson rolled out the red carpet and threw everything at us. Bumper to bumper traffic, accidents and idiot drivers.

Welcome To Tucson

Roll over involving a horse trailer

Dakota and I led the way in the jeep while Barb followed in the big rig. We went directly to the 20 acre Snyder Hills BLM area on the southwest edge of the city. We had camped here for a couple days in 2014 and found it a nice quiet place to stay. Our hope was to stay there for 14 days and then find another location. However when we arrived we found it absolutely packed! There were rigs everywhere and I mean everywhere. There was one open spot but after a couple attempts we decided that we would not fit and ended up parking along one of the drive lanes adjacent to the road.

20 acres of RV's

At the dead end but near the busy road

As we were getting set up I noticed there was something wrong with the bedroom window. It was gone! How did that happen? As our friend Dianne would say “Geez”. I guess the emergency window had an emergency......

Barb has been on the phone with a couple local Forest River dealers in an attempt to order a new one. After several days Lazy Days never called her back, but she got a hold of a very helpful parts man at Frost RV who tried for a couple days to find the exact one we needed. She finally called Forest River herself, gave them our VIN number and he promptly gave her the part number. Unfortunately she could not just order the window, we get to get a new frame and everything....AND they have to make the part (2-3 weeks and another week for delivery) AND it could only be ordered by an authorized dealer. So she called Frost RV back and they ordered it while she was on the line with them.  In the meantime I snapped out the screen, encased it in plastic and snapped it back in place so we are somewhat secure from the dust and wind.

After our first noisy night at Snyder Hills we moved over to Justin’s Diamond J’s just a couple miles down the road. Forrest, Somer and Lily were due to arrive and we were hoping to get a little better spot for the next couple of days and determine where we wanted to stay longer term. Diamond J’s is a nice park with somewhat large sites. Unfortunately they did not have any sites for that night so we took a $12 sites in their overflow area (They charged us $12 for the jeep and trailer as well). The overflow sites were even closer to the road then the Snyder Hills site!

Late that afternoon Forrest arrived! We have not seen them in over 7 months and it was great to see them….Lily is really growing up!

Between  the traffic noise and the dogs barking across the street we had a restless night and wished we were back at Snyder Hills...so that's what we did the next morning, packed up again and moved back to Snyder Hills. Luckily someone had vacated a spot that would fit both of us so now we are snuggled in here for a few weeks. The previous tenants must have had quite the party while they were here because they left 7 cans of whipped cream behind...someone's birthday perhaps, something more interesting? For those of you who don't know just google "huffing Reddi-Whip" and you will  understand.

Our friends Greg and Cori, owners of RV Solar Solutions arrived at Diamond J's the following day as well so we went over to their place for a welcoming happy hour. We have not seen them since Quartzsite last winter. They had reserved a spot for a month so hopefully we will have more get-togethers with them.

Forrest, Somer, Barb, Greg and Cori

Our first adventure here was to the Desert Museum. Each of us bought a Tucson Attractions Coupon Book so it was 1/2 regular admission. Barb and I had toured the museum last year and thought Forrest, Somer and Lily would enjoy it. It is like a combo museum, zoo, botanical gardens all rolled into one. Lots of wildlife exhibits....Lily got to pet a stingray as well as walk through the hummingbird exhibit both of which she thought were very cool!

This guy was over a foot long

Archaeologist Lily

Touching the Stingrays!

Western Tanager

This hummingbird is sitting on a nest

The nest is no bigger then a quarter

I tried to get Barb to do this but she refused saying they would

probably have to call the fire department to extract her!

They have just about every variety of desert plant there is, they had names by many of the plants so you could learn the plants that grow in the surrounding desert.

A crested Saguaro

This one looks like a fuzzy Dilbert

Bee on a daisy

No sure what these are but you can caption this one yourself

Also arriving this week was Jim and Brenda who we had recently met in Quartzsite. They are having some work done on their Momentum and spent a night here at Snyder Hills. We got together one afternoon for a tutorial on blogger. Stay tuned for their blog adventures coming soon!!!!

This morning Barb woke me up whispering "Happy Anniversary" in my ear. Wait? What?!?! At first I thought it was a dream but it quickly turned into a nightmare as I had not bought anything for her....no card, no gift, no candy....so I got ran to the truck (after getting dressed) and rushed to the nearest store. Entering the store I stopped dead in my tracks and knew I was in trouble...... but with the help of a friendly sales clerk I left with everything I needed.....

Feliz Aniversario a mi Ángel de la guarda!

Whew dodged that bullet......I am going to give them to her tonight, I will let  you know how that goes!