Saguaro National Park, Arizona

April 12, 2023

Happy Easter everyone! 

Our next stop was the beautiful Sonoran Desert near Tucson, Arizona.

We had avoided travel during the worst of the winds by hunkering down for a couple of days in the little city park in New Mexico, but it was still plenty windy when we headed onward toward Arizona.

We encountered a lot of handy driving tips along the way.

Up until now, Rick's white-knuckle rating was about a 2 out of 10 (10 being the worst). He was wondering if he was supposed to be more nervous.

If you do need to pull over in a dust storm, better watch out for that loose gravel.

Since we more or less were experiencing the winds head-on, we really didn't have any issues with scary trailer movement. We did, however, experience some pretty crappy gas mileage.

Fortunately, upon entering Arizona, all the signs disappeared and we didn't have to worry about the wind anymore 😉.

Approaching Texas Canyon

Our first saguaro sighting!

More saguaros!

And more!

Our campground was located in Tucson Mountain Park which was adjacent to Saguaro National Park.  We were surrounded by saguaros 😊.

That evening, we took a walk around the campground loop.

We were treated to a moonrise in our "backyard".

The next day was windy and pretty chilly with a high around 60-ish. (Isn't Arizona supposed to be hot in April?)  Rick's first order of business was to fix all four bike tires that had had close encounters with goat-head stickers in the Texas desert.

Rick's "garage"

And, joy oh joy.. Julie's toenail was feeling back to normal, so she was able to wear shoes again.

On Thursday, we headed to the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum just down the road. It was part zoo and part botanical garden. We especially enjoyed a raptor demonstration where we got to see an owl and different types of falcons in flight and up close. (No pictures, unfortunately.) The grounds were beautiful, and there were quite a few wildflowers and cacti in bloom.  There was a lot to see and we ended up walking about 5.5 miles by the time we saw everything we wanted to.

Lots of twisty turney paths!

How cute are these little guys?

Of all our travels so far, it seems that the one constant is squirrels.

On Saturday, we checked out Saguaro National Park, also just down the road. We hiked the scenic Wild Dog Trail (about 2 miles). As usual, Julie's phone worked overtime taking lots and lots of pictures.

We stopped by the visitor center where they had a display of a saguaro skeleton. We were surprised how woody it was.

This one's a bit frightening

On Easter Sunday, we enjoyed a beautiful sunny day hanging out at camp relaxing and Skyping with our kids. 

We look forward to our next stop near Phoenix where Audrey and Alan will be flying out to visit with us for a few days. Yay!

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