Tucson, Arizona

After leaving our new friends Andy & Laura's house, we arrived at our friends, Dan and Roxanne’s house in Tucson in the late afternoon and got the RV parked just as it was getting dark.  We were parked under a big structure in the back of their property.  Roxanne was away in New York on business so the we went to dinner with Dan and got caught up on life.

The next day we did a hike with Dan and his friend, Tim, in Saguaro National Park on the Douglas Spring Trail.  It was a beautiful day and a great hike!

We love the saguaro cactus so it was fun seeing all the different shapes!

We hiked to a waterfall (Arizona style)!  It's called Bridal Wreath Falls.

After the hike we went out to dinner for ribs with Dan.  Al and I split one rack and Dan ate the other rack!  Those of you that know Dan will not be surprised by this!

The next morning we had to leave early.  We said a quick hello to Roxanne who returned from her business trip late the night before and we drove to Surprise, Arizona to drop off our RV for some minor repairs.  The dealer will keep our RV over the holidays.  

We spent the night in a hotel on the border of Arizona and California to break up the long road trip.  The next day we drove to Al’s mom’s house where we are staying for the holidays. 

Note:  I'm planning to do a Q&A blog entry so click on the title (if you're reading this entry in email) and then on our blog page there is a place to send me a note (in the right side column).  Put any questions you have for us there and we'll try to answer them in an upcoming entry.  I won't include your name so don't worry about "stupid" questions.  I'm sure others have the same questions too but are afraid to ask!   

First Impressions and Running out of Diesel in the New Truck!

So we left Pecos after just one night in the campground and headed north west.  We drove on roads through the west Texas oil fields where there are no services (gas or food).  We got to one highway (62) and saw a sign stating no services for the next 110 miles.  The new Ford truck has so many gadgets and it said it had fuel for 130 more miles so we hoped it would make it.  Unfortunately, that gauge didn’t realize the Ford was towing a trailer so the actual miles remaining in the truck was much less.  Eventually the gauge got down to one mile left in the tank so Al found a good place to pull over.

Ok, it's not too bad.  We have two trucks so I took the Chevy another 30 miles in to El Paso, bought a canister and some diesel fuel and drove back to meet Al.  The spout on the canister wasn’t long enough to open the line to allow the diesel to enter the truck.  Around the same time as Al was trying to figure how to get the diesel into the truck, two guys pulled over in their pick up.  They had a big fuel tank in the truck bed with a nozzle.

Work truck with diesel tank

They offered to give us some diesel.  I was very nervous about these guys because of their look.  They had lots of tattoos and I think one had an ankle “bracelet”.  They got their truck lined up so the nozzle would reach our truck tank and Al started pumping fuel in to our tank.  The guys were all talking and not paying attention so when Al checked our gauge, he had pumped in about 20 gallons of diesel.  The guys must have been workers who service the oil trucks because the diesel they had was “red” diesel in their tank.  It’s the same diesel as the gas stations sell but it has a red dye to mark it since there are no taxes paid on this fuel.  If we got caught with this diesel in our truck, we could get in trouble and fined.  Anyway, after the 20 gallons, the guys left and wouldn’t take any money.  I got a lesson in first impressions!

Our Diesel Angels

We finally made it to our destination for the night, Hueco Tanks State Park and luckily, they had a campsite open for us.  We got settled in and relaxed after the stressful day.  It was cold outside but we kept nice and toasty in our RV.

Hueco is a Spanish word meaning hollows and refers to the many water-holding depressions in the boulders and rock faces throughout the region.   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hueco_Tanks

The next morning we went for a hike and saw pictographs.  We climbed up the rock mountain where some parts were very steep and a chain was supplied to help with stability.  It didn't help that it was very, very windy!

One of many pictographs

Some "modern" graffiti over top the ancient pictographs from 1884!

We didn't have to check out of our campsite until 2PM so that allowed us time to hike around in the area and take showers before we hit the road.

Cotton Field near La Mesa, New Mexico
(looks like snow!)

We then drove to another Boondockers Welcome member’s house in La Mesa, New Mexico.  Andy and Laura were there waiting for us.  Al got the trailer parked in their long driveway and we went inside for some hot tea and to meet our new hosts.

Our trailer in Andy & Laura's driveway

Laura, Andy, and Nancy

Our hosts, Laura and Andy with Nancy, and Al

We had great conversations with Andy and Laura and ended up having dinner with them at their house.  We talked for hours and finally called it a night. The next morning the conversations picked right back up and we finally had to leave in order to get to our next destination of Tucson, Arizona before dark.