Here we are, counting down the days until we begin our trip North, to home. Only 2 weeks left here in the Bone Yard. We’ve been here for so long that everything seems quite normal. This is the longest we’ve ever parked in one spot.

Yesterday, we took a vote to see what our future travel plans might look like. It went something like this:
All in favor of camping in the future cover your left eye: 2 to 1 (Max abstained)
All in favor of not being full time Snowbirds blink 6 times: 3 to 0
All in favor of going to the beach any time we want bow your head: 3 to 0
All in favor of selling the RV nod your head vigorously: 87 to 2
(we used some proxy votes for this one)

So, next stop is Luke Air Force Base in Phoenix.

From there on we will continue moving north as the weather allows.

Should be fun.

Here’s Christmas morning in Tucson.

After a lunch of eggs and toast, we took a leisurely drive around the Tucson Mountains. To do this required that we transit the road to Old Tucson and Saguaro National Park West, roads we’ve been on before. Diane was actually hoping we were going to a park where Max could run freely. It was a really nice ride and it was fun to see all those Saguaro cacti again, but the end of this trip, according to the GPS, was Gilbert Ray Campground.

We drove around inside the park for a while but didn’t find any place where Max could run freely. The park is smack dab in the middle of Saguaro National Park West. Well, maybe not in the middle, but it’s imbedded in the park because Saguaro cacti are everywhere.

Since there wasn’t a place for Max to jog, I got out with him and prepared to walk along the exit road. First, I stopped at an empty campsite to check the electrical hookup and found that it was both 30- and 50-amp service. Diane did another search and discovered that this campground is only $35 a night. There is an RV dump and there are no showers in the restrooms. But when the sun goes down I don’t think there is any light pollution so star gazing must be incredible.

As Max and I walked to the back of that first site, a coyote calmly walked across our field of view about 20 feet away. I was a little astonished. Max didn’t see it. If he had I may have lost an arm is he’d taken off to chase this guy. Within seconds he disappeared in the underbrush. What fun. Max and I continued our walk while Diane followed along behind us. We quit about 1/2 mile down the road then got back in the car and headed out.

Instead of returning the way we got there, we took Gates Pass Road that goes over the Tucson Mountains back to the town proper. It was a very scenic trip.

This is about halfway up the road from the valley.

This is closer to the top, looking back to the valley, before heading down the other side.

Going down the Tucson side, looking at the north side of Tucson.

When we got home Max wanted to stay outside after that long ride This is how he communicates that desire.

When asked if he wants to go inside, he drops to the ground immediately if he wants to stay outside. He’s pretty creative that way.

That’s pretty much it for the day, except for the spaghetti dinner we made. No pics so you’ll have to trust me it was really good. It’s the first time we’ve had spaghetti this trip.

Since supper we’ve been binge watching NCIS from 2012. We’ve always liked the show but these are so old if we watched them then, there’s no way we’d remember. So they’re all brand new to us. Nifty.

Now I must stop.

Guess what! As you may have guessed, Saguaro NP West looks a lot like Saguaro NP East. So, they are essentially the same but different. The West version seems to have way more saguaro cacti sprouting on it’s portion of the Sonoran Desert. I think that’s true. Yeah, pretty sure. If someone determines that I’m wrong, I’ll deny it. I can do that because I’ve decided to be a politician in the near future, and it seems to be OK if they are not completely accurate when they speak.

We drove through entire forests of incredible saguaros on the way to our destination, but we stopped by Old Tucson first, which is a few miles before the park. Turns out that Old Tucson was closed, except for the Last Outpost. So, while I walked Max around the enormous, empty, parking lot, Diane bought us each T-shirts to commemorate the event. Later, when we got home, Diane discovered that she got an XL for me. She meant to get an M, but the XL was on the hangar. So, we need to go back tomorrow to trade the XL for an M.

From the trinket store we drove straight to the park without mishap. The park visitor’s center is surrounded by millions of saguaros, so it was a good place to put this national park. The variety of shapes is amazing, and they are all unique.

Even Max was interested.

There are many hiking trails throughout the park but those are not for us. We limit our walking from the car to a bathroom and perhaps a gift shop. The exception on this trip was our stop at the Desert Museum.

Museums interest us and we try to visit them when we can, so we stopped at this one. Diane didn’t want to go in so she found a parking spot in the shade, which was amazing, where she and Max could wait for my return.

I went to the entry to see what it was all about and found these brass figures of javelinas.

They stand mostly in the sun all day long so that pink piece of paper you can see on the big one is a warning that says “HOT”. I wanted to make sure that was true, so I touched it. It was.

Then I got to the entrance and saw this sign:

That’s when I turned and went back to the car. Diane and Max were surprised to see me so soon but understood when I explained that there’s no way I was paying $29.95 to enter a museum that was going to close in about 30 minutes. I wouldn’t pay it even if it was going to be open for the next 30 hours. They were on my side. So, we left.

As Diane was pulling out of the parking lot I spied this beauty and convinced her to stop and let me out for a few seconds. We had seen pictures of this kind of saguaro but could not see any in all the fields we viewed. Then there was this one right in plain view.

You have to admit that this is a very stunning cactus. Now one I talked with could explain to me what causes some of them to grow like this. That’s OK. I can live with the mystery. Our stop here was amazing even though neither of us went into the museum.

Then we went home. That’s part of Tucson in the distance.

Now I must shower and go to bed.