After a morning hike to the peak of Sugarloaf Mountain in Chiricahua National Monument we packed up and continued westward. Our next stop was the historic (and very touristy) town of Tombstone, home of the famous Gunfight at the O.K. Corral. After finding a place to park the RV we grabbed a quick drink at the local microbrewery and spent the next hour or two wandering around town. Sales pitches for gun fight shows and so forth were on every corner, but we weren’t much interested in shelling out the price they wanted for a ticket. After a quick BBQ lunch we made our way out of town.
We stopped for the night at Kartchner Caverns state park. We found out that we needed to have booked a reservation beforehand to view the caverns themselves, plus the fee they wanted was quite high so we didn’t feel too bad about missing it. It was a nice campground to spend the night but we’re glad we didn’t spend any longer.
From here we proceeded south closer to the Mexican border, through a small town called Patagonia which was cute, and picked up a few supplies at the local market. The entire area was quite picturesque including our accommodations for the night, Patagonia Lake State Park. We got the kayak out and went for a sunset paddle, the first time we’d actually used the kayak since leaving Florida actually. The park was busy with picnickers when we arrived on a Sunday afternoon but quickly quieted down once they left for the day and stayed that way the next morning. This was a place we wouldn’t have minded staying a little longer but oh well.
The following morning after exploring a bit we made our way back North again, stopping at a Thousand Trials campground just outside Tucson. We had read that this was one of the nicest parks in the chain, and while the facilities were nice (three pools, two hot tubs, tennis) it felt quite large and impersonal. We didn’t leave the park the first day opting to get some work done. The second day we went for a ride in the afternoon up Mt Lemmon, which was extremely beautiful with huge elevation change from the start to the finish at the peak. Our second day we did a shorter ride out to the west side of Tucson and Saguaro National Park, which didn’t have the elevation change but was very pretty with tons of cactus and great views nonetheless. We ended the ride with a short trip to downtown Tucson which we both found quite nice.
The next morning it was time to leave Tucson and head to Scottsdale to spend a few days visiting Gareth’s Uncle. En route we stopped at the Biosphere 2 site where in the 90s teams of scientists went inside to simulate life outside of Earth. Unfortunately it was not dog friendly and it was too hot to leave Misty alone in the RV. We could have run the generator for a brief visit but the mandatory guided tour was going to take almost 2 hours so we decided to skip it. We made one more stop on our way to Scottsdale at Casa Grande National Historic Site, a well preserved 700 year old two storey building.