Buses By the Bridge -- pt. 4

Bright and way too early (yes, I have pictures of the sunrise to prove it), we packed up, hit Starbucks on our way out of town and headed down to Tucson.

Our good friend Hobie has a little "casita" on the west side of Tucson where he spends his winters far, far away from Washington's wet, rainy weather. Here's a picture of his labyrinth which you can even see on satellite pics of his place. Pretty darn cool! 

   

Saguaro National Park (west) is pretty much right next door. What an interesting drive that was. The Bearded One and Spotted One weren't too crazy about the endless miles of washboard road but the scenery was so worth it. 

 After the saguaros the destination was Pima Air Museum. The Bearded One spent three hours checking out the aircraft (yawn). The Spotted One & I made ourselves comfortable in the bus and tried to do some reading. 

 Next up was Mission San Xavier del Bac. This is a beautiful mission. I wish we had been able to spend more time but, at this point the sun had decided to stay out and we didn't want the Spotted One to get overheated in the bus. 

 There were lots of photographic opportunities. 

 I was fascinated with this cactus that looks like an artichoke.

 And, there was Indian fry bread! Yum!

 Driving in and out of Tucson were fields and fields with these huge tarp covered bales. They were cotton. But not just any type of cotton, these were Pima cotton fields. If you look closely you can see some little tufts of white left on the plants here and there.

After 12 days in the bus, the dog that absolutely refuses to put his head down and sleep while we are driving finally relented. It was about this time that we were also able to pull into a gas station without him barking like crazy at everybody. There is hope......

Would you believe -- 7 miles from home we get hit with a golf ball size rock, smack dab in the middle of the windshield? Oh that hurt. But, I guess when you consider everything, completing 3922 miles with just a broken windshield that's not so bad, right? We didn't spend any time in a repair shop like some people did, or sick for the entire trip like somebody else......

We came home to the aftermath of a huge snow and ice storm. The Seattle area doesn't get snow very often and even less rarely do we get ice storms. Especially storms of this magnitude. Our neighbor said everything was coated in 3/4" of ice. It is now a week later and we still have two huge piles of branches to deal with. We will have to have a tree expert look at this poor tree. There are so few branches left now....