Visitors to varmints...

Thurs Feb 4 – Drove up to Florence, Arizona, about 85 miles north of Tucson to visit cousin Randy Wersch and his wife, Karen. They are renting a park model in Caliente Casa del Sol. They took us on a tour of their park. Randy wanted to show us how to play Pickleball but the court was not available. Randy’s team back home in Kamloops won the BC Championship so he’s an expert.

Karen fed us a nice dinner and we really enjoyed our visit! About a week later they came to our park for an afternoon and early evening. Tucson to Florence is a lot closer than Portland to Kamloops.

Then John and Lynda Brooks from Calgary, Alberta stopped in to see us. John and Lynda are one of the two couples who were parked behind Diane and Tim last year in Hemet. We called them “The Canadians.” They always seemed to be having such fun and often invited us to join them. John and Lynda had just arrived in Tucson after stops in Quartzite and Yuma. They have a beautiful, brand new trailer and are dry camping in the parking lot of the Casino del Sol just a few miles from us. We went to the casino with them a couple of times and cashed in on the Tuesday special of Prime Rib dinner for $9.95. Yummy! We also got a chance to play some Pegs & Jokers. So nice to visit with friends.

Tues Feb 9 – Headed for the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum. We have visited this museum in years past with our daughter, Karen, when Addison was a toddler. It is still a wonderful museum. Be sure to check it out if you are ever in Tucson. And we got 2-for-1 admission again with our Tucson Passport!

Things we learned at the Desert Museum:
1. Saguaro is pronounced se-wah-ro and they bloom only at night and are pollinated by bats
2. Some owls live in burrows in the ground
3. The red dye in strawberry yogurt comes from a certain kind of beetle (eeeeww!)
4. Javelinas (pronounced hav-a-lenas) look like skinny pigs, have noses like pigs, ears like pigs, and tusks like pigs, but they are NOT pigs

Here’s a little burrowing screech owl. He (or she, can’t remember) is only about 5” tall.

                    A couple of javelinas (not pigs)

The museum has indoor and outdoor exhibits with everything from snakes to prairie dogs, as well as a walk-in aviary and hummingbird aviary.

Prairie dog (as if he's posing for us)










Roadrunner – obviously not running. Can’t get a picture when he’s running.

Coyote – No, they don’t have him in the same pen as the roadrunner.

You can walk right into the hummingbird aviary. Birds are zipping all around you. Awesome!

Drove through part of the Saguaro (se-wah-ro remember?) National Forest returning from the Desert Museum. Stopped at the Gates Pass viewpoint built by the CCC in the 1930’s.

looking to the west from Gates Pass

view to the east - city of Tucson in the distance

Tucson is surrounded by mountains – the Santa Catalinas to the north, the Rincons to the east, the Santa Ritas to the south and the Tucsons to the west. The Santa Catalinas are particularly impressive as they are so rugged and the tops have been dusted with snow the whole time we have been here.

snow in the Catalina Mountains

We were surprised to see that the highway signs on I-19 south toward Nogales, Mexico are in kilometers. That, of course, is because Mexico, like most other nations in the world uses the metric system. So the sign says 105 km to Nogales, how far is that in miles? Let’s see, we learned this in school but it was a long time ago….