Lazydays - Tucson

We are at Lazydays RV in Tucson, AZ waiting for replacment of our jack/slide motor and the Scion is still being fixed.  I feel like we are spinning our wheels getting nowhere but it is a nice place to spin around in.  When you get service at Lazydays and have to wait days for parts, etc. you are courtesy parked and hooked to electricity free of charge.  You can use all facilities of the campground including the pool, exercise room, laundry, dump station and water as you wait it out. We have been here since Thursday, the day the jacks and slide did not work.  At least the jacks & slide were in when the motor went!!!  Today the RV should be all fixed but the car is still in the shop - new engine, starter and they are assessing the damage to other parts.  It is frustrating but we are lucky to be safe and snug here.  March was a non-planned month so we have been waiting for our house on wheels and car.  John is much better at being patient than I am.  I get bored.  Tucson had a cold spell and rain (no swimming for me for a few days).  We could see snow in the surrounding mountains.  Mt Lemmon had 2 feet of snow on top but we saw only sleet and a little hail. We have been on an urban hike to Ace Hardware, Walgreens and the dollar store and taken the RV once to Target shopping so life goes on.  There was an RV rally here at the campground. We took advantage of a rig weighing vendor and had our MH weighed. We learned more about tire pressure.  We were not overweight but very unbalanced.  We are still unbalanced but much better now.  We also had a very good local Tuscon pizza delivered right to our rig last night.  We could not do that in Organ Pipe!  Life is an adventure and some adventures have more trials than others!!!

Lazydays feels like a hotel.  Here is the main lobby building with restaurants, lounge, etc.



We are hooked up with electricity in the waiting to be looked at spaces, not the campground itself.

The campground sites are like small streets with RV lots

I have been using the pool and hot tub here.

The surrounding mountains from Lazydays at Tucson

The flowers are beautiful here

Patagonia and Tumacacori



Patagonia Lake State Park has a bridge so one can sail also.



The lake is a dammed river but this lake has trees and actually fits the scene

Tumacacori is a mission established by Father Kino in the 1500's

We traveled south of Tucson to Patagonia State Park, 14 miles from the Mexican Border.  It is a dammed stream becoming a pretty lake with prime birding.  I saw 4 vermillion flycatchers, including a pair. They are sooooo beautiful, males being brighter red than cardinals on their underside and head and they are very small birds.  The males red & black.  There were so many birds the calls were almost deafening in the mornings. Of course they would not stay still for their pictures so no bird pictures but we took a boat tour birdwatching and saw lots of waterfowl.  The night program was on the geology of western National Parks, all of which we had seen, so it was interesting to us.  There was a birding tour with a ranger Monday morning and a very special bird, the Elegent Trogan, was spotted by someone in the park but sadly not by us.  After 3 days we traveled back north stopping at Tumacacori National Monument below Tubac.  We joined the ranger tour so it was a great time at the monument and a good travel day.  We are back outside Tuscon at the Casino del Sol parking lot.  The state park we called yesterday was booked.  It is school break here and everything is  full.  We had to move in Patagonia for almost everything was full there. We are going to Lazydays for their 3 days special for the weekend so here we sit waiting for word of our car. I am now wanting to hear when the car will be ready.

Friends and Trouble

Good friends of ours visited the last days we were at Organ Pipe and we went to dinner with them at a coworkers home who lives in Sonoyta, Mexico.  It was a great ending to special times in the "Most dangerous park in the US" (That is what the Yahoo reporter said and she was sooooooo wrong.)  We see things in reality living there for almost 4 months.  We will think of Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument as a safe blooming green desert with warm hearted people.  We were lucky to be in such a "dangerous place".  The young reporter tried to make a name for herself on sensationalism.  I hope she does not succeed

Our friend Pam and John at an Organ Pipe

Our little toad did not make it out of the neighboring reservation without a huge problem.  John looked in the monitor and mirror to see smoke from the engine.  Little car was on fire.  We stopped and with help of a nice passerbye unhooked the toad so the fire if exploded did not take the motorhome with it and the Why Fire Department was called, then  cancelled. We managed to put the fire out quickly so we hooked the car back up and the nice couple who helped suggested a free place to stop outside of Tuscon so we could collect ourselves and take the next step.  Our emergency proved how good people are.  They were wonderful strangers in a very remote place. 

This gentleman put little car up there all by himself.  I thought it was our last goodbye to little car. 

A budded cholla

 

One of my last pictures at Organ Pipe. This is how I will remember the beauty of ORPI.

We spent three days at Casino del Sol outside Tucson, AZ in their parking lot.  Lots of RV's were there.  It was well lit and free and we had cell service internet.  We called our insurance company and got a tow truck out on Monday morning.  The fire happened on Saturday and you know how the weekend works!!!!!!!!!!!!  We shopped at Walmart right down the road on Sunday and by Wednesday we had signed insurance papers and the car was looked at.  It will be not be totaled and covered minus the deductable and we are fine.  We collected our thoughts and decided to spend some time at Lazydays in Tuscon waiting for word from the repair place. (stay 2 days and get 2 days free) I had a few items to buy and we now have some LED lights to boondock with so our batteries will last longer.  We were fine at the Casino for 3 days but now we are better off. We have decided to go to a state park until the car is fixed.  So despite the problem or because of, I used a hot tub and pool during the time winds closed I-10 down.  Life on the road is not boring if nothing else!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

Sonoran Desert Wildflowers

Spring has come to the desert.  Birds are singing and flowers are in bloom.  We traveled the 21 mile Ajo Mountain Road for the last time a few days ago.  Everything is just beautiful.  It is around 80 in the afternoons and the sun is very bright.  Now the only thing I need is a WOW sunset.  I have not seen one in a few weeks.  John has his last talk tomorrow night and I will pack up my paints on Monday.  We met Lauren and hubby for lunch in Yuma last Thursday so the family visits are over. The VIP campfire in our honor is on Wednesday night. Thursday we are going to Sonoyta for dinner and Friday morning we leave.  Goodbye beautiful Organ Pipe National Monument.  We are off to new adventures!!!!

Lupine and brittle bush along the road



I think this is called desert poppy. It is very tiny.

Brittle Bush is everywhere and sooooooooooooo beautiful

These daisy like flowers are as small as a pinky nail

Brittle bush even makes the rocks happy

As well as prickly pear



Lupine are creaping up against a bush



This is a cristate but I thought it a neat picture

Globe mallow in blossom also

The fence at the border

We feel very safe right next to the border.  We see NPS law enforcement daily and border patrol vehicles go by all the time.  Our tour to Quitobaquito was escorted.  We have seen a few men called "quiters" waiting for patrol to pick them but they just look very beat and sad.  We have watched a dog do his thing finding drugs and being rewarded by his master.  We go through checkpoints every time we head north.  It is just a fact of life to live with the border patrol in this place but we always feel safe and do not know why the media of the country makes this so dangerous. I would be more uneasy in one of the big cities!  Do not believe what you read or hear!

This is the fence along the border.  It is a concrete and steel vehicle barrier. 



This is the Lukeville border crossing and a patrol truck.

John at the Lukeville restaurant.  Note the menu saying "25 miles from water and 3 foot from hell"

This is the fence going west to east on monument hill.

It is almost time to leave and I am sad.  We have had great experiences in this place.  It is just breath takingly beautiful and peaceful.  Our time has been spent wisely but time went by quickly so next week will be our last here.  Maybe we will return someday.

Quitobaquito Van Tour

Organ Pipe Cactus is giving tours to a historic pond in the monument.  It is right along the border so we were escorted by law enforcement and they were with us for safety at Quitobaquito.  It is an spring oasis in this desert.  A town was here and someone farmed the surrounding land after building a pond to irrigate crops of figs and corn.  Now it is in a closed area right next to the border fence.  It has interesting history.

Is this the desert?

 

The surrounding landscape is like this.



The Ranger is explaining to us about the history of the pond.

More Visitors

Our daughter Lisa and husband visited us while we traveled from Phoenix to the Karchner/Bisbee area and Tucson. Then we traveled through the Tohono O'Odham reservation back to Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument where we park the rig until the end of February while we continue volunteering. They met Buffalo Soldiers and saw a living cave.  They met the characters in the infamous OK corral gunfight and desert animals up close at the Sonoran Desert Museum. They saw mine tailings the size of small mesas and lots and lots of desert cacti at Saguaro National Park and Organ Pipe. They now have a taste of traveling the Sonoran desert country. 

Look who is coming down the street in Tombstone. It is the start of the OK Corral gunfight!



Jim became a tortoise at Tucson Sonoran Desert Museum

Back at Organ Pipe we met the cactus up close and personal

 

Spring is sprung in Organ Pipe National Monument.  We counted at least 18 different wildflowers in Bloom on our Bull Pasture Hike.

Lisa and Jim's proof they climbed to the pasture

Lisa was trying to find me where I stayed behind on the last leg to the pasture.