Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Road trip to Tucson

11/15/09


Our week in Mesa went very fast. We enjoyed our stay, but our 1/2 price is only good for a week, and we need to stay on our budget so off we go to Tucson.
As soon as we left the big city of the Phoenix, we see field of just sand. The harvest must be done for the year.
Oh wait, here is a field of something. Not sure what it is. Anybody Know?
And farther down the road another field of green. Not sure what this is either. Anyone know? ( sorry for the streaked windows. We just cleaned them a day ago, but condensation dribbled down the window this morning from the warming sun).
Picacho Peak state park ahead, just north of Tucson. We think we saw Picacho tree groves just back a ways.
Peaks and the sun.
Cotton field. Who knew cotton was grown in Arizona.

We enter into Saguaro National Park. The road is like a roller coaster. My stomach almost dropped out down one of the hills. We get to where the GPS said we need to turn left on a road that is not there. Our camp ground is located on San Joaquin Rd., and there is a San Joaquin Rd. to the right so we decide to go down it. As we drive down the road, we notice that the numbers are going down from 1600 to 14oo. The campground is 3451 San Joaquin Rd. Joe stops and asks a man who is out in his yard where our campground is located. Joe told me the guy could hardly speak English, but conveyed to Joe to turn around and go the other way. Joe was going to try to turn around in this mans yard( we are in the country and he has a big open spot after you drive into his drive), but the Nest was going to scrape against a large bush entering into the drive. I got out and directed Joe to back up enough to get out of that situation. Then Joe thought maybe he had enough room to turn around in the road. As I watched, I had to have him stop as he would have hit this guys mail box. We drove further down the road looking for a big enough place to turn around. ( this road was a no outlet road as we knew by signs before we entered to road. Again Joe found a spot he though looked wide enough to turn around. We tried it but he could not make it. I told him we needed to unhook the car, and turn around, then rehook. Joe wanted to go farther down the road a little more before unhooking. We found another spot that looked like there would be enough room and tried again. As he turned he got past the culvert on the other side of the road, but as he would continue to turn he would scrape against another big bush.( all the bushes out here have thrones of some sort). I told him we could try to back up a little, but as he tried I realized real fast that the toe bar was at an angle that it was not going to work, I yelled stop on the walkie talkie. We had to unhook, turn the bus around, and then re hook. Sometimes it's just faster to unhook, though we have found places to turn around before. You just never know. After looking at the directions in our Passport membership book and calling the campground, we realized we had to go back out to Hwy I-10 and go through Tucson to catch San Joaquin on the other side of Saguaro State Park.
We finally arrive at Doc Justin's Diamond J RV Park.
We got to the park just before dark.
Office at park.
I was nervous about booking here for more than one day til I knew the park was nice enough where we wanted to stay. They offered 7 days at 1/2 price for PA members and told Joe over the phone when booking they had plenty of space. As we pulled in I told Joe it looked like a really nice place.
As Joe registers, I took this picture of the Golden Gate Mountains behind the park. Looking east as the sunset cast red on the mountain.

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