Change of plans: Touring Tucson

February 10, 2012—One of the nice things about being in the motorhome is the flexibility it affords. That’s a good thing, especially when “things” happen.

We arrived in Tucson on Tuesday, intending to enjoy a free night’s stay at the LazyDays RV Resort. (LazyDays is an RV dealer from Tampa. It recently opened a location in Tucson. At both locations, it offers a full-service resort. This one is the nicest resort we have ever stayed at!—with two heated pools with spas; club house; wide paved streets; wide stone-based RV plots with paved patio, paved parking, and table and four chairs; bocce courts; putting green; and a full-service restaurant and bar.) The resort was giving away a free night’s stay to introduce its facilities.

After dinner, Jim told me one of his caps felt loose. Not a good thing. Obviously, we had to go back to the dentist. We considered our options on how to do this: We could:

1. Drive the motorhome back to Yuma and take care of business. This was an expensive option and we decided against it.
2. Find somewhere to boondock for the next night. We could move Baby to a dry-camp area and boondock for one night and just delay our New Mexico trip by one day. We don’t like to boondock, and we didn’t know where to do this around here.
3. Look for another RV park. This one cost $40/night. It might be possible to find another, less expensive place to spend an extra night, but that would have required searching and moving, with no guarantee of finding anything less expensive.
4.   Stay here. It turns out LazyDays offered a 2-for-2 deal: Buy two nights, get two free. We opted for that, and we are here in Tucson for a total of five days. We rescheduled our New Mexico jaunt.

On Wednesday we returned to Los Algodones. The dentist fixed the problem, and we got back to Tucson by 8 p.m.

When we extended our stay here at LazyDays, we inquired about discount coupons for area attractions, such as Old Tucson. The clerk told us about a “passport” book. The cost for $18, and it provided two-for-one coupons at many area attractions, including Old Tucson, the Desert Museum, the Biosphere, and many others. Yesterday we went to the Desert Museum.

I think I’ve been to the Desert Museum at least once, but I did not remember seeing anything that we saw yesterday. It was quite nice.

We decided to take a free guided tour, led by a women about my age, who was a trained herpetologist. We learned more about the Sonora Desert and its plants and animals in that one hour than I ever knew before! At the end of her tour, we watched a release of trained rafters (a native desert hawk), which swooped down among the crowd and awed everyone with their soaring and hunting skills.

Jim took almost 100 pictures of the animals, plants, the mountains, and the saguaro forest (really neat). I was not so prolific, only taking a handful. I’ve included a few of the best pictures here.

Today, we are going to the Biosphere.

Until next time,

Your Reluctant RoVer,

Linda