March 8 - Tucson and Patagonia

 On February 22 we left Phoenix and headed south to Tucson and as we got closer to Tucson it started raining and then snowing hard - thankfully non of it stuck.

We got to Tucson Mountain Park and Gilbert Ray campground - a county park at about 1 pm and got the last campsite. (Lucky since they don’t take reservations so we were glad to get one.) We have stayed here before and really like the area. The campers and trailers who had been there the night before had a couple of inches of snow on them and the TV said it was one of the worst snow storms in years. Later in the afternoon, we drove the short distance to Saguaro National Park and took the Bajada Scenic Loop Drive and took a short walk on the Signal Hill Trail which has several very nice petroglyphs.

Saturday we went to the Pima Air and Space Museum that has a collection of military and civilian aircraft and we saw hundreds of airplanes displayed on their grounds and inside hangers.

Many of the outdoor planes still had snow on them from the day before. One of my favorites was the WW2 B-24 bomber as we are listening to Unbroken by Laura Hildebrand and the B-24 played an important part in the book so it was interesting seeing it first hand.

Sunday we did some hiking in Tucson Mountain Park and in Saguaro National Park. The trails are very nice and the weather warmed up so it was a very nice walk.

Monday, we spent the day at the Arizona Sonoran Desert Museum - one of our favorite things to do in Tucson. It is almost more of a zoo than a museum and we always go to the Raptor Free Flight Programs and this time we saw a great horned owl, a ferruginous hawk, a gray hawk, a red tailed hawk and five Harris hawks flying free and sometimes very close over our heads!

We went to a reptile program and learned all about gila monsters and rattlesnakes.

Gila Monster

I think we saw almost every animal, bird, reptile, insect and plant there. I liked the cats and birds the best, but the entire place is exceptional!

We were exhausted after walking around all day. Tuesday was chore day. Even on a big adventure one has to do laundry and buy groceries. We did go to lunch at El Guero Canelo which won a James Beard Award for its Sonoran Hotdogs - yum!

Wednesday, we took a hike on the Brown Mountain Loop with the trailhead right near our campground. It was a five mile hike to the top of Brown Mountain and several other smaller hills. The views were wonderful as were the cactus and wildflowers. The weather is improving steadily with daily highs in the mid 70’s.

Thursday we went to Sabino Canyon Recreation Area, part of Coronado National Forest. It is another one of our favorite places in Tucson. When we have gone there in the past, we have taken a tram to the top of the canyon and walked down. However, the tram is not running because of contract disputes, so we took a lovely 3 1/2 mile hike in the lower part of the canyon.

While we were on the trail, we saw a coatimundi - the first time we have ever seen one in the wild. That was pretty cool!

 Friday March 1st we left Tucson and headed about 2 hours south to Patagonia Lake State Park - about 10 miles north of the Mexican border. It is a lovely park with a beautiful lake and best known for all the birds that winter there and migrate through the area. We bought a couple of feeders and have enjoyed watching humming birds and gold finches at our campsite. They have a very nice birding trail that is a great way to see lots of birds and cattle which have free range on the property - but watch where you step! While we were here we took a 1-hour pontoon boat showing water fowl on the lake and a 3-hour bird walk for the land birds where we saw 29 different birds. We particularly like the Vermillion Fly Catcher, a lovely little red bird, and the Lazuli Bunting, a light blue bird.

Clockwise from left - Gila Woodpeckers, Lazuli Bunting, Vermillion Flycatcher,
Verdin, Northern Cardinal, Violet Crowned Hummingbird

Mark has also enjoyed kayaking on the lake and sailing his small remote controlled sail boat. Hikes in the area included the 3-mile hike through the Sonoita Creek State Natural Area adjacent to the park. We had to cross over a spillway that had two inches of water in it we had to wade through because of all the rain and snow that has fallen. The hike was lovely and the desert is starkly different from what we are used to at home but most of the wildlife we saw were cattle!

The hike was lovely and the desert is starkly different from what we are used to at home but most of the wildlife we saw were cattle!

On Tuesday, March 5, we drove north and west to see Mardera Canyon Recreation Area- part of Coronado National Forest and another well known birding area. We hiked the nature trail from Mount Wrightson Picnic Area at 5400 feet to the amphitheater at 5000 and then back up to the starting point. The hike was very nice on a beautiful day but we were again disappointed to not see many birds.

We stopped for lunch in Tubac, a cute little artist town, and then visited Tumacacori National Historic Park that preserves an old Spanish Mission established in 1691 to 1828 for the O’odham native people. The self guided tour through the ruins was very interesting.

It was a very nice relaxing week at Patatgonia with nice warm weather and Mark increased his birding list to 128 different birds this trip.

On March 8 we left Patagonia and headed west to Oregon Pipe Cactus National Monument. The temperatures had dropped back down into the 60’s and it was windy driving here. The landscape is much greener here and we saw lots of wildflowers along the road.

Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument is protecting the only place in the United State that three types of columnar cactus - Saguaro, Organ Pipe and Senita Cacti.

Organ Pipe Cactus in front of Saguaro Cactus

We have a great campsite with Organ Pipe, Saguaro, and Barrel Cacti surrounding us. We set up camp and went to the visitor center and a nature walk and attended a campfire ranger program tonight.



Tomorrow we are excited to get out and explorer the park. More to come…

Westward Ho!

 On February 6 we visited Historic Pensacola which is managed by Western Florida University and they have done a great job of preserving the 19th Century harbor town. Pensacola could have been the oldest European city in North America but a hurricane came along and destroyed most of the settlers ships and supplies so the group decided to move to St. Augustine. Pensacola has been under 5 flags in its history: Spanish, French, English, United States, and the Confederate. We visited 4 historic houses, interesting museums and walked the city streets.

 The weirdest was the T J Wentworth museum that started as one mans personal collection of oddities. They said he would take anything and display it with unusual descriptions. Very interesting collection including a petrified cat.

On the 7th we we went to the Gulf Breeze Zoo. It was a little zoo but you can get very close to the animals. We had such a fun time with our favorites being the lions, tigers and white peacock and riding the small train into the back area of the zoo to see animals roaming free. Mark’s high point with feeding and petting the Giraffes.

February 9 found us on the road heading west and leaving Florida after 11 weeks. Traveling through Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana and camping for a night in Baton Rouge. We didn’t do any tourist stops along the way, but the campground had a small but challenging putt-putt course that we enjoyed.

The next day we continued west crossing a much wider Mississippi River again about 2400 miles south of where we crossed it in Minnesota in September.

The area around the river is all bayou and the interstate 10 was raised above the wetlands for miles. On our way to Galveston Texas, our first big destination on the western trip, our GPS took us off the interstate near Port Arthur, along surface roads, and to a ferry at Port Bolivar. The R-Pod had her first ferry ride for 15 minutes to Galveston Island and our campsite at Galveston Island State Park.

Our campsite was about 100 yards to the beach and we took many beach walks.

On the 11th we went to Historic Galveston that did not impress us very much - there was no one around and the town was dead. We later learned that the tourist season begins in March and it then gets really crazy. We did take a harbor tour seeing many Dolphins, birds and a concrete boat that was sunk as a reef in the river and later ate a seafood restaurant on the water.

Our hopes of sunny warm Texas were dashed when we woke up on the 12th to rainy, cold, 54 degree day. (And it hasn’t improved very much since but we still have hopes for warm and sun.) So we decided to go to Houston and Space Center Houston. First we took a tram tour through Johnson Space Center with the most interesting part being the astronaut training facility with a full sized mock up of the International Space Station, Orion - the next US space capsule, and some early training for Mars missions.

We then saw another Saturn 5 rocket display. This included an actual flown Skylab Apollo Capsule

The historic mission control room was closed for renovations to celebrate 50 years since the moon landing but we saw exhibits about all the different eras of the space program. Finally we toured the 747 that was used to ferry the shuttles back the Cape Kennedy after a flight with a mock up Shuttle on top.

On the 13th we spent the day relaxing around camp. We did take a long hike on the park’s trails but with all the rain we had, the trails were very muddy and had to walk through the water in some places but we managed to get through.

It was quite nice in the afternoon, a warm day for a change, and we sat for an hour on the beach and Mark got to sail his model sailboat on a nearby pond.

On the 14th we packed up camp and moved to Austin Texas, which neither of us have been before, and stayed at McKinney Falls State Park on the outskirts of the city. We rode bikes around on the trails lined with lots of different cactus and visited the upper and lower falls of the Onion River.

We made friends with some other R Pod campers across the road from us. They had just bought the camper and we shared our experiences and answered lots of questions about setting up and using the camper. We didn’t know we are experts but 6-months on the road with the R Pod impressed them a lot.

On Friday, our only full day in Austin, we visited the very beautiful Zilker Park Botanical Gardens and the LBJ PresidentialLibrary and Museum. We didn’t know, or forgot, but are impressed with how much Johnson did for human rights, social services, and protecting national parks. We should mention it got up to 91 degrees today, a record in Austin, so maybe we should stop wishing for hot?

On the 16th, we left Austin and began to realize how huge Texas is! First we drove through what Texans call the hill country and that was quite lovely. When we got back on westbound I-10 it was miles of nothing. We stopped for the night in a RV park in Fort Stockton, Texas.

On Sunday the 17th, we got back on I-10 and crossed into New Mexico. We got a campsite at Rockhound State Park near Deming, New Mexico. There were several lovely trails, great views and lots of cactus. The park is known for its rocks including geodes, jasper and opals and you are allowed to collect any rocks you wanted. Mark picked up a few rocks, but we didn’t know what we were looking for.

On Monday we headed further west to Arizona and Roper Lake State Park near Safford. This is our 27th state on the trip and the coldest so far! We were concerned all day by the forecast of cold and snow and we had low colds, rain and lots of wind but the only snow was on the surrounding mountains. We did fit in a couple of hikes to a nearby mesa and around the little lake. Very nice trails with lots of views and birds. Mark now has 100 different birds on his Big Trip Bird List.

On the morning of February 19 we were headed to Phoenix and Lost Dutchman State Park. The ranger at Roper advised us to not take the northern route so we headed south and west to Tucson and had snow on the way so a good decision.

Wednesday turned out to be lovely day so we headed about 14 miles east of Phoenix on a winding, beautiful scenic road to Canyon Lake. We managed to get the last tickets on the Dolly Steamboat for a one and a half hour cruise on the lake. It has steep canyon sides all around the lake and we saw an eagles nest and several Big Horned Sheep on the cliffs.

We then drove to Tortilla Flats which is an old fashioned western town with 5 stores and population of 6 folks but there were probably several hundred tourists there. It was a wonderful day.

More to come

February 5 - Northern Florida

 We spent January 21 - 31 at De Soto Park south of St. Petersburg, located near the entrance to Tampa Bay, on 6 keys or islands that are connected by bridges. It has 7 miles of bike paths, lots of beaches, birds and wildlife, and great campsites.

 Some of the things we did while we were camped there are: ride our bikes all over the park, walked out on 2 fishing piers, walked on the beaches, explored the fort, and took wildlife walks where we found a mother Great Horned Owl on a nest and two baby owls hatched while we camped here.

One day we took a small passenger ferry from our park to Egmont Key State Park that has ruins of an old Fort built for the Spanish American War. The only things remaining are the gun batteries from the fort, lots of red brick roads and sidewalks and a hurricane battered lighthouse. One cool thing was lots of Burrowing Gopher Tortoises on the island.

We then visited some friends we met during our European river cruise, Jackie and Paul, in Palmetto and toured the area, ate lunch and got caught up. Another day we drove north to Honeymoon Island State Park and took several nature trails. We have never seen so many Ospreys in one place.

Mark’s cousin Mike and his wife Lea from Virginia were snowbirding in the area so it was very nice to catch up with them again. We met in Tarpon Springs and ate at a Greek Restaurant on the river and then visited and learned about all sponge business and visited many stores. The Greek immigrants settled in the area in1876 and carried their traditions of sponge gathering, grading and selling with them to Tarpon Springs. It is world famous for the quality and quantity of sponges from the Gulf of Mexico.

We visited the Sunken Gardens in St Petersburg. These gardens started in 1935 in an old sink-hole as a road side attraction. It has lots of tropical and subtropical plants growing along paved paths. The garden suffered over times and was rejuvenated when it turned into city park in the 1990s. It was very relaxing and beautiful.

On Sunday the 27th it was very rainy and cold so we decided to go to the Dali Museum in St. Petersburg. Dali’s artwork is amazing and beautiful but also strange. It would have been hard to see what Dali was trying to do and to understand the pieces but the museum has audio tour headsets that fill in the details. The building itself is also a stunning in tribute to Dali. Afterward, in keeping with the Spanish theme, we found a Spanish restaurant and enjoyed tapas for brunch.

Toreador, a fantastical masterpiece of double imagery and visual illusion. Look for the matador  (nose and eyes)b in the center of the picture above the green tie.

On the 31st we left DeSoto and headed north to Manatee Springs State Park for two nights. The park is very lovey. Due to all the rain, the area around the spring and flow to the Suwannee River was flooded, tannin in the water made it very dark, and the Bald Cypress trees made the whole scene eerie and beautiful. We looked a lot but never saw any manatees this time but Mark was able to get the kayak out and take two trips around the water and through the cypress.

On February 2 we heading north and west and are staying at Gulf Islands National Seashore across the bay from Pensacola. We have been very worried with the shutdown that we would not be able to camp here but luck was with us and we have our spot. They have many miles of beach here that is the whitest sand we have seen on the trip.

We spent the first day biking around the park and visiting Fort Pickens which was built in 1834 and was used until 1947. Most of it is broken down but still interesting to see the brickwork and moats used for protection. 

We also have daily, or hourly fly-overs by jet trainers and f-18 fighters. It took us a long time to figure it out, but when we got here we distinctly heard taps playing … turns out the Coast Guard Station - Pensacola is right across the bay from here and sounds travel very well over water. Some mornings we hear Revelry and The National Anthem… never had this at a campground before …

On Monday we visited the National Naval Aviation Museum that is one of the must-sees in this part of Florida. They have meticulously restored navy airplanes from the first world war through the present. They have the planes on the floor and suspended overhead to fit all the aircraft in the two buildings, including four Blue Angles jets in formation. We also took a trolley tour out to the flight line to see other aircraft outside and saw several trainers take off and land.

We finished the day by visiting the lovely Pensacola Lighthouse which we can also see from our campground.