We spent Jan. in the town of Casa Grande, about 40 miles south of Phoenix. It's a moderate size town, has a nice mall, good grocery shopping choices ( that means Walmart and others), some good eateries but not too crowded or busy. Everything was pretty close and we were able to ride the scooters for errands rather than the BIG truck. Of course, you can be as busy as you want at the RV park with activities. There are the usual senior park activities, shuffleboard, cards, pool activities, pool hall and ongoing lunches, dinners, shows brought right to the park, clubs, classes and "state" get-togethers. This is snowbird country and even though they have left their home state, they have never really left. All the same things here except the snow and cold. Lots of golfing too. Anyway, its a way of life for many senior citizens and you can join as much as you want or not. Some friends from Boise joined us for 2 weeks at the park and we golfed a couple of times and enjoyed visiting.
Now we have moved down to Tucson where another group of friends resides. This park is smaller but still has the same activity choices. All fun stuff. The weather in January has been great, one of the warmest on record. It still can be very chilly at night and down to the high 30s but so far no snow. Most days are pretty clear and very little rain.
Our plans have altered a bit since we were planning on being at Picacho through April. Now we plan to start moving north in March to check out campgrounds and parks up in the Mesquite. NV and St. George, UT area. Also we will get to visit with our youngest Kyle. Then we will go back to Escalante for some volunteering for Apr-Jun. I hope to have some fun time in July and Aug, before we leave for Australia in Sept. Anyway, that's the basic plan but as you know, everything and anything is subject to change.
We have the chance to explore more of AZ sites and are closer to some now. We did visit the San Xavier mission, old and historic but still a working church and mission. The interior has some very ornate carvings and religious depictions. We then went on down to the art town of Tubac, also very old and home of the Tubac presidio. Other than touring the presidio, there are lots of art stores, sculptures, crafts from Mexico or southwest.The stretch of highway to Tubac is a direct freeway to Mexico. We had no desire to go that far but it's interesting in that mile markers are in kilometers and on the return a border patrol stop in the middle of the freeway. Everyone must stop and get looked over, I guess, because they asked no questions really about where we had been. There is one just like it in TX, from McAllen to San Antonio. Anyway, it was a nice day.
Hopefully, we will get to Katchner caverns, Tombstone and a couple of other parks. We will keep you posted.
