Hanging in Tucson for a week

Our base of operations: Catalina State Park.

Stayed at this campground for the week, should have stayed for a second week.  A great state park.  It's a good thing that we had reserved a campsite almost a year ago, as we discovered that this park is now almost as hard to get a site during January/February as the Florida state parks.  Why?  Great campsites, lots of activities, and some great trails leaving from the park into the surrounding Catalina Mountains.

While at the park, we went to a Saturday afternoon folk concert, and another day, took the almost 6 mile Romero Pools hike.  The folk concert was fun, and the hike was beautiful, but very rocky.  Our muscles and knees will be recovering for a few days.  We had recovered from an earlier hike in the Sabino Canyon a few days earlier, a much more moderate hike; but also another breathtaker.

Although Catalina is a good reason to spend time in Tucson, the best reason is to be with our friends, Vickie & Michael.  What great hosts.  Once again they took us to the BEST Mexican restaurants.  And then we drove together down to Tubec and checked out all of the arty stuff; especially the Mexican ceramics.  Yep, we purchased some new dishes for our NJ home.





We must mention that while in Tucson, we had a number of days of rain; the first precipitation since November.  All of the locals were happy, and so were we.  We watched the desert green up and the waterfalls started falling.  Made for interesting hikes!