Phoenix, AZ

Dates of stay: Jan 24 - 26, 2022

Campground: Casa Grande RV Resort

Sad to leave Tucson as we loved our time there and 4 days wasn’t enough! That said, Phoenix was a fun stop as we got to see a lot of friends and family. Arrived at the RV park - we are easily 10-15 years younger than everyone else camped here! It is actually a bit difficult to find an RV park in and around the Phoenix area that is under 55 AND takes kids. But this place did. Very nice - great hot tub and pool and very friendly. They had a small market one morning selling Native American themed jewelry and fresh lemons - a huge bag for a buck!

During our time here, we had the Megan Gehrke family (her, husband and 3 boys) over for tacos at the RV. I made a big pitcher of really good lemonade with those lemons! They moved from Farmington, MN about a year ago and so it was fun to be able to swing through and see them. I was also able to visit my friend Nancy for the first time in real life. We met each other through Refine, a Christian women’s networking group, and she lives in Wisconsin. Funny thing is is that just a couple of weeks ago, she posted on Facebook that she was at an RV resort in Phoenix for the winter - just so happened she was about 15 minutes from where we were staying! So I made the trek over and we had so much fun chatting.

Finally, we spent the majority of time visiting Charlie and Rita Healy, Tom’s uncle and aunt, as they winter in the Phoenix area. We hung out at their place and had the chance to visit an amazing museum - the Zelma Basha Salmeri Gallery - which has one of the world’s largest private collection of contemporary Western American and American Indian art in the world. This one was a favorite:

We departed Phoenix the next day for Sedona, and had an extremely close call with a pilot car trailing a wide load - they pulled out RIGHT in front of us at a high speed. Thankfully, Tom is so adept at maneuvering this rig - crisis averted thankfully!

Tucson, AZ

Dates of stay: Jan 20 - 24, 2022

Campground: Gilbert Ray - Tucson Mountain Park

We arrived at a beautiful county campground, outside of the city. It’s gorgeous! So many huge saguaro cactus and we have a lovely spot to catch the sunsets. The coyotes were out tonight and howling, right by our campsite, I swear - they sounded so close. There are lots of great trails here to explore.

Gorgeous weather, and we did a hike on the Golden Gate trail, just out of our campsite. We’ve noticed that people are popping the hoods of their RVs and cars open. We asked a ranger about this, and she said it is due to the packrats - they rest in the warmth of the engines at night because they are heated up by the sun. Sometimes they chew on the wires and can do a lot of damage. Supposedly the drafting helps prevent it; we were also told that essential oils sprayed around the area help (I did this), and string lights under the vehicle also helped - which also makes for pretty campsites I found out! We enjoyed another gorgeous sunset on our second evening, and made pizza on the blackstone (so that must’ve been a Friday)…

Side note: during this trip, we found out that Mom and Dad Conn purchased a home in Florida, so we are excited to have a place to escape to NEXT winter!

We also discovered the Arizona Sonoran Desert Museum, which was just 5 minutes from our campground. Using the term museum to describe this place definitely falls short. It’s home to a zoo, an aquarium, botanical gardens, an art gallery, an education center, an incredible raptor show, fossils, and more. The docents - both junior and adult docents - were incredibly well versed and taught us quite a bit. We spent almost the entire day there (6 hours) and still didn’t see everything. The day we were there, they had a mineral hunt going on for the kids. There were stations around the entire museum, and at each station, you would learn about certain minerals and then you would be able to have a specimen of each of the minerals. Was a pretty neat way to engage the kids. There is also an art gallery here, which is focused on conservation of all sorts of animals - it’s a really lovely place. Even the onsite restaurant was decent! Not to mention, the gift shop was really nice and we picked up our own little Saguaro cactus…

The museum sits on the edge of the Saguaro National Park, so we drove through this area to see all the cacti. We drove a scenic loop that took us by the rock art, and other areas that were built by the CCC in 1933 - ramadas, picnic areas, restrooms. The rock art here didn’t come close to what we saw at Seminole Canyon, but it was still interesting.

It rained tonight (which I am hoping will make the cacti flower), and also watched the Packers in the playoff game. Happy we were able to stream it. But they lost.

On our last day, we found the Titan Missile Museum, as this was a highly recommended stop by the Fulltime Families facebook group. So glad, because it was jaw-dropping amazing. From the website: “At the Titan Missile Museum, near Tucson, Arizona, visitors journey through time to stand on the front line of the Cold War. This preserved Titan II missile site, officially known as complex 571-7, is all that remains of the 54 Titan II missile sites that were on alert across the United States from 1963 to 1987.”

Our tour guide served for four years here when he was in his early 20s. He was an outstanding guide, and he took us through a simulation to give us the experience of what it would have felt like if they were given the instructions to launch the missiles. It was bone-chilling in a way, and a very moving experience. As I still remember the movie “The Day After” from the 80s, which was all about middle American during the Cold War, this visit made that part of my childhood very real and it gave us all a close up look at how these individuals were serving during this time frame. HIGHLY recommend visiting if you are in the Tucson area - be sure to make reservations in advance. Today, the escape hatches are permanently locked into place and kept partially open so that the Russian satellites can see into the area, which was an agreement as part of the peace treaty when these things were decommissioned.

Wrapped up our final day with an afternoon bike ride through the desert scrub, and amongst all the cacti. Bumpy, rocky, sandy, not well marked, but fun. And thankfully, we did not end up on any cacti. Off to Phoenix to visit family and friends.