Returning to the Land of Snowbirds

I spent the Thanksgiving holiday and my birthday with my daughter and her family in New Jersey. Usually traveling around any holiday is chaotic and I don’t like doing it but this time I did and it actually wasn’t so bad. My flight left out of Tucson, Arizona and went just as planned. My tentative return date was Monday. With everyone off to their own activities which included work and school, I figured it would probably be best to catch a flight back on Sunday instead. After all it was quite a little drive to the Newark airport from their house and on Monday the traffic would be worse. Isn’t it nice that we are free to change our plans on a moment’s notice. I think it’s that Jell-O and chalk mixture that most RVers use.

It was time to head back to Arizona and the warm weather. That’s the reason all the northern folks head south for the winter. Their intent is to leave all the cold weather in the North where it belongs. Well, that’s not always the case. Terry and Duchess were both happy to see me but Terry let me know he wasn’t a happy camper since it had been windy and chilly. More of that cold weather was even in store for us and the propane was almost down to nothing. I wasn’t sure whether it was actually colder in New Jersey or in Arizona.

The temperature was forecast to plummet down into the mid-20’s for a few nights. The wind was chilly. What’s this all about? We had a few things we had planned on doing but with the sun someplace much farther south, we switched our plans and took a drive towards Old Tucson. At least we were in the car where it could be warm and out of the blustery wind. The trip wasn’t actually planned but it was nice.

The Arizona Sonoran Museum and Saguaro National Forest is just a few miles west of Tucson and along the route to Old Tucson. We didn’t stop at Old Tucson and just did the drive to enjoy the view of all the saguaro cactus. It’s a gorgeous drive. There are hundreds and hundreds of huge cactus in the area. Not too many cars were on the road. They only seemed to show up when I wanted to take a photo or two.

On the way back into town I plugged in the address of the Garden of Gethsemane since we wanted to take a look. This is what the Garden of Gethsemane looks like in Tucson.

On the side of the Mount of Olives across from Jerusalem is another Garden of Gethsemane. We took this picture when we visited a few years back. It's totally different than the one in Arizona, of course.