Tucson Arizona

October 18 - 23, 2017: 

We are on our way to another city we have not stopped in before, Tucson AZ.  Tucson is a little over 400 miles making it a bit too far for us to do in one day so we stopped about half way in Congress AZ.

Entering AZ!

We decided to spend a couple of days at the Escapees RV Park called North Ranch. I think this the third Escapees RV Park we have stayed in over the past 6 years.  They are all different but they are always a great place to stay.  The North Ranch is no different in that fact.  It is also a very big RV Park with somewhere around 110 RV transient sites and then another 300 - 400 permanent sites with mostly houses.  The back side of the RV Park is connected to BLM land so we are really in a very rural area of AZ.

The North Ranch Escapees RV Park

Our site here at North Ranch.  Not much to it but we really don't care because we only use parks as a place to put the RV while we explore.

North Ranch is a great place to visit Congress and Wickenburg AZ.  Since we had just the one day we decided to explore Wickenburg.  Wickenburg was recommended as a good place to explore by our NJ friends (Drew and Barbara) who have a house near here.  It was a shame that we just missed seeing them here by a day! 

Wickenburg AZ.  Old time movie theater.  We see a lot of these out in the rural southwest

Like the saguaro parking lot

They didn't have adequate materials for building jails here as most buildings were made of adobe.  Prisoners could easily claw there way out.  So they just chained prisoners to this tree

These statues were all over Wickenburg AZ

Top of the day with handmade ice cream.  Note the live music in the background

Just outside Congress AZ near North Ranch RV Park

The RV Park has a cactus garden

I just loved the houses here in the park!  Took these on one of my interval walk/runs in the park

While walking I came across these people taking down an old rotten saguaro

There she falls!

Love the way they decorate their roadway here in the desert southwest.

After North Ranch we moved on to Tucson and the Sentinel Peak RV Park.  The Sentinel RV Park is a great park to stay in to visit downtown Tucson as it is very close to downtown and the new light rail line.  The park itself is just a small parking lot sort of place but the people are very friendly.  The woman who workcamps there and runs the office is great!

Our site in Sentinel RV Park

We stayed here 4 nights giving us 2 whole days to do a little exploring.  The first day we went into the downtown area via the light rail system.  We just had to walk a couple of blocks to get on the rail line into the city.  We went into the arts and crafts area called the Old Town Artisans.  While there we found the best little place for lunch there called the La Cocina.  We ate in the outside area under a canopy of trees and fountains and with live blues music.  It really doesn’t get any better than that!

Downtown Tucson

We really loved this place to eat in the Artisans Village

Some blues being played

I took this picture so we could find these cheaper somewhere.  I really want one!

The Tucson courthouse

We spent the rest of the day exploring the many little shops in this artist area before heading back to our RV.  We decided that we would eat in tonight and go out to dinner tomorrow.

Our second day started as a visit to the Ecosphere about 30 miles to the north-west of Tucson.  The Ecosphere is where a group of people in the 90s spent 2 years living in an artificial environment.  I had heard of this back when it was happening but never thought I would get to see this place.  

The Ecosphere is now owned by the Arizona State University and was started back in the early 1980s as a small experimental environmental laboratory.  Basically they built prototypes of this geo dome before they built the real and final product that we saw.  This was a great experience to visit and take a tour of this place, we loved it.  

Our tour guide on the left.  The tour was about 90 minutes and only cost $5 each

When they had the people living in the biosphere this is where friends and family came to visit through this window and phone.  Sort of like being in jail.

Inside the biosphere is a complete ecosystem.  They have an ocean, desert, and wetlands.

There is also a rainforest

Hard to imagine living in here for 2 years.  They planted and grew all of their food.  They even had chickens and pigs!

This is some of the underside of the biosphere where the water and air from the biosphere is moved around.  All of the air and water came from the biosphere and nothing but sun from the outside.

This is an air shaft tunnel for the air lung.

Inside the air lung.  This large place that is elevated in the picture moves up and down with the air pressure in the biosphere.  Without this the biosphere would explode!  It mimics our expandable atmosphere.

These are the garden areas

Close ups of the main part of the biosphere

After the Ecosphere we drove south to another National Park, the Saguaro National Park.  For those who don’t know, the Saguaro is a type of cactus that mostly only grows in southern AZ.  We drove in and went to the visitor center first to check in and get a pass.  After we got our pass we took a short 3 mile hike to see the petroglyphs.  This was another great place!  It is so weird to be in so many tall Saguaros and see them as far as you can see!

If you look closely you can see the petroglyphs

Now the petroglyphs can be seen clearly

Me with a large saguaro

End of a long day exploring the area around Tucson

A large A representing Arizona State University

As we are leaving we see more very nice roadway art.  It looks nothing like NJ!

So that was it for out travels to Tuscon!

Stay Tuned!

"I am writing these last few 2017 travel blogs a couple of months late as it gets hard to write them after we stop for the winter.  I have a couple more to go to finish the year."