Wednesday, March 1, 2017

Tucson, CA - On the Road Again

On Sunday, we readied the RV for travel. The plan: to Casa Grande for 2 nights then on to Tucson for a month. Gary unhooked the water and sewer and other things, I got the inside ready to roll down the road. Sunday night we checked the weather for Monday and, sure enough, it was the same as it had been for the last week: rain, wind advisories and flooding. Not good and certainly not what we wanted to travel in.

It began about 4:30 am. Just a few marbles dropping intermittently on our roof. Woke us up. Then a bit more and by 5:15 it was a full-blown rain storm. Steady, loud and then sometimes heavy. We were awake for most of this. Hard to sleep when those marbles drop. We checked the rain and the wind speeds for the pass we had to get over between San Diego and Casa Grande. Heavy rain, strong wind with gusts to 50 mph. Oh, boy. And, we’re in this ‘high profile’ vehicle. The one the reports say you shouldn’t drive in weather like this.

We called the desk to see if we could leave Tuesday instead. Sure, they said. And we hunkered down. Here’s a picture of the rain out side our RV.
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And, here’s the drain in front of our RV. Sure hope that stays open. If if clogs, we might have lake front property. Doesn’t everything look dreary in the rain?
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The next day it was sunny, the rain had stopped, the winds had died down to a manageable level and we were off. Here’s the inside of our RV all ready for the trip. We’ve got our slides in, our child locks on our cabinet doors, our chairs tied down and everything put away. Lots of scrambling to do this. Not much room around here but we can skinny though to the refrigerator and the bathroom if needed.
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Then there’s the bedroom, where we put lots of the things we need to put away. Our closet has sliding mirrored doors so we need to clamp them together and to the woodwork so they don’t move. We have put our propane heater, out printer, out pictures and Navajo rug along with some other things on the bed so they don’t move around and stay cushioned.
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We had no trouble leaving San Diego during rush hour - because we were heading OUT of the city, not into it. And, the lanes heading into town, stopped or stop and go. Must be problems in those lanes. But, we sailed out of town. Up into the mountains, over the pass, and down the other side into Yuma.

We then decided to stay in Gila Bend rather than the campground we had planned for Casa Grande. 2 days in Casa Grande and we could unhook the Jeep. We had only one day now since we had stayed an extra day in San Diego and we just wanted to park over night without having to unhook and be on our way in the morning. We took a walk around Gila Bend after we got there and saw this: a sign for the local Jehovah’s Witness church in town - in Spanish.
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The next day, Wednesday, we headed over to Tucson. On the way we passed this iconic spot: Picacho Peak. We think we’ll have time to hike up to the top. But, there are cables to get up there. Hmmm. Here’s the description: ‘Railroad-tie wooden steps, steel cables, wire mesh-enclosed catwalks, and gangplanks lead to the summit.’ We’ll see. ‘Cables?’ ‘Catwalks?’ ‘Gangplanks?’
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Right on the highway.
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And, here we are in Tucson Meadows which is a nice, well-kept park-model resort with an RV section in back called Winter Haven. We were here back in 2011, liked it and are now back.

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