Another Valentine’s Day is here

Hiking on the land adjacent to Justins Diamond J

So the day to tell your significant other you love them is here. How silly is that! Everyday should be the day you declare your love for who knows how many days we will have to do just that. If you are like us this one of the days in the year you absolutely don’t want to go out. We will leave that for those who are still in the courtship stretch of their relationship. We will pass it nicely though with a nice meal here at home. On the menu is steak with sauteed mushrooms, roasted potatoes, salad and a nice bottle of wine. Cheers to all!

Our site at Justin's

We are two weeks into our stay inTucson and so happy we decided to come. We are staying at Justin’s Diamond J where we stayed 6 weeks back in 2011. In an online review they described this park as quirky and I think that is a good description. It sits right next to Desert Trails which though it has more amenities the sites are very tight. The sites here are decent size and there is a pickle-ball court, clubhouse with a bonfire area and a bizarre little miniature golf and pitch and put course in the center of the desert loop. We honestly have never seen anyone use these. The park backs up to the Tucson Mountain park and the Sarguaro National park and the hiking trails are plentiful. We have taken several long hikes and one in which we got a little lost, luckily I had a cell signal and the GPS got us going the right direction. We enjoyed this park in 2011 and we are enjoying this time too.

This little guy serenaded our hike.

One of the cool things this year is there is a serious amateur astronomy buff in the park and on Wednesday evenings he does a star gazing where he sets up his really nice telescope and shows us lots of cool things in the night sky. Last Wednesday we were able to see Mars and the its Galilan moons. He also pointed out the a couple nebulas and the heart star cluster. On the 25th he is bringing a friend of his “Chuck” (don’t know the last name) who does star parties as a living to the park. He will have at least 3-4 large tracking telescopes there. I sure hope the weather cooperates as I am looking forward to this.

We also have gotten the bikes out and rode one of the many bike trails here in Tucson, plan on doing that again this week. I have several things still on the list to do. I think you could spend several winters here and still not do everything there is to do. We did quite a few of the touristy things back in 2011 so this time we are spending more time hiking and biking.  We did make it to Sabino Canyon and hiked part of the Bear Canyon Trail. The water is running from a storm we had when we first arrived so the creek crossing to Seven Fall were up and we turned back on one, I think the hike would have been more than we were ready for that day. Next time we will take the tram to a further trail head and start the hike from there, we may try to get back there but not sure. We would like to hike some at Catalina State park too and of course some more hiking right from here.

Thunder Canyon Brewery

As usual on our travels we have checked out a couple of the microbreweries. First went down to Gentle Ben’s that is near the University. The beer was good and so was the food but parking is difficult when you have a big truck. We did find a spot in the lot by the Universities Information Center. The second brewery, Thunder Canyon Brewery,  has been our favorite and we have been there twice. The do have 2 locations but we have only been to the on at the Foothills Mall near Catalina.They have several IPAs for John and the best Porter (Cupp-a-Joe Porter) that I have ever had. The food here is also excellent. The first time we splint a small pizza and the last time got there Southwest Hummus Plate. I see us trying to find their other location before we go, its closer to the park.

We are beginning to think about a bigger rig. We almost bought another Excel last year but decided against it and that turned out to be a good decision when we found out we needed a new truck shortly after that. We have loved our Excel but there are lots of reports about a decline in some of the quality and service from Excel so we are entertaining several other options. One is Lifestyle and we wanted to get another look at these rigs so went to a dealer here. Found out they were having a show up at the Oro Valley Market so even though it was a bit of a drive we went for it. They only had one Lifestyle but it gave us an idea on size, floor plan and quality. The only thing I saw that Excel does better is the cabinetry. Even last year at the Tampa RV show when we went through other high end coaches it was hard to find one that had better cabinetry than Excel but cabinetry is not the highest priority on the list for making that decision.  I think it will be another year before we make any firm plans so we will keep looking as we go.

This is getting a bit long so I will wrap it up. John’s out washing and waxing the rig so I will go check on him. Happy Valentine’s Day to everyone.

Happy Trails......................................