Back to Tucson

FRIDAY

This morning I did one last load of wash then we headed to Tucson.
Filled up with gas in Benson at $3.22/gallon. The current Middle East troubles are bumping up the price of oil.
Stopped by the Pima County Fairground RV park just to take a look for future reference. It's OK but nothing special. Mostly a big patch of dirt with hookups. If someone just needed a place to dump tanks & fill with water it would do just fine. It is very convenient to I-10.
Continued on to the Desert Diamond Casino "campground". We stayed here before. Not bad. A nice central South Tucson location, fairly level, good security. Two of the RV's that are here were here the last time. Looks like this might be their winter home.
We're right in the glide path for the small, private aircraft runway. The bigger stuff is a bit further to the north. Not as noisy as you might think for a campground next to a big airport. Plus it's fun watching the planes.
Tomorrow, John & Marge are going to join us here for lunch. Then we're going to mass at the San Xavier Del Bac Mission. The weather is supposed to turn bad on Sunday so we plan on heading back to Benson first thing Sunday morning.

We decided to eat at The Trough, i.e. buffet, tonight. It was Mexican night. We figured if anyone knows Mexican it's around here. We were right. For $8.95 each, we had a very good meal. The Tres Leches cake was delicious. One of the foods I wanted to try was a Sonoran hot-dog. They had them here. It's a hot-dog wrapped in bacon then covered with a bunch of stuff like chili, cheese, jalapeno peppers, etc. Oink, oink!!

There was a couple in the restaurant tonight. She used a scooter and had some condition that resulted in major spasticity. As I watched her husband help her, I was reminded of the old saying. "I complained because I had no shoes until I met a man who had no feet".

Another wonderful day.

SATURDAY:
John & Marge weren't due in until 11am. I heard about an Indian swap meet not far from the "campground" so off we went. What a great way to spend a few hours. Swap meets and such things, are a great way to get a sense of the local culture. We were one of the few Anglos. All the signs were in Spanish. The selection of stuff being sold was amazing. A very partial list: goats, dogs,& birds, new & used shoes, tires with no tread left, piles of rusted junk, cheap tools, some broken clocks, movies on VHS tapes(only $.25 each), plastic arrowheads, on & on. At home a lot of this stuff would wind up in the dumpster; not on the Reservation it doesn't. I looked to see if anyone was selling scalps but I didn't see any. To top it all off, there was free live entertainment. A guy on stilts juggling some hoops.
There were a dozen or so food vendors selling the real McCoy, or real McSuarez, whichever. No Taco Belle "Mexican" around here. Wish we hadn't just finished breakfast.
We had a great visit with John & Marge. Had a long lunch in the casino. They're staying in Tucson for the next two weeks. John decided to retire from Hallmark in September. Over 40 years there. His Maxine character, which was his idea, is still going strong. Maxine just turned 25.
We're sitting in the parking lot of the San Xavier Del Bac Mission waiting for the 5:30 mass. Carol really likes this church and wanted to come back so here we are. There are a handful of booths setup in the mission square. Indians selling made-in-Mexico jewelery. "Genuine" Indian rings for only $5 and things like that.
The weather is supposed to get nasty tonight so after church we're heading back to the casino. It's only about 10 minutes from here.

SUNDAY:
The big news was waking up to snow. Not exactly a blizzard, but snow nonetheless. At about 4am a truck with a refrigerated trailer pulled in not far from our campsite. The generator operating the cooling unit ran continuously. Oh well, for free, you can't complain much. Well you can complain if you want, but nothing good will come of it.
Today's forecast is for a high of about 50* with a low tonight of 21*. We decided that was a very good reason to head to a real campground with electricity. We went to the place where the Lazy Daze GTG is being held. There are two other LD's there as well. Didn't meet then. It's just a nice day to stay inside, watch TV, update Blogs,drink warm tea and such.