Travels with Twinkles: Freezing in Arizona

January 14, 2013:

I promise this will be the last talk of the weather ! We are having a near record breaking cold spell here in southern Arizona, low 20's tonight, but it's a dry cold ! Others may complain, but I don't mind, (unless the pipes burst), it's actually kind of nice to wear jeans, long sleeve shirts, boots and coats again. I'm thinking that ten months out of the year is enough time for sweat, sunburn, sandals, shorts and tee's, plenty of time for that stuff latter.

We are giving the furnace a workout (hopefully not a wearing it out) and now going through a tank of propane about every 5 days. The heated basement area seems to be working pretty well. The weather forecast has it getting much warmer over the next week.

I went to the Friday evening concert at the campground, the Silver Thread Trio, three very attractive women who play fiddle, guitar and washboard, sing beautiful harmony and acapello and share a flask on stage. You have to like that !!! On the way back to the RV in the dark, perfectly clear night, so many stars, beautiful, one of the wonders of this lifestyle.

I'm reading the new Neil Young book, "Waging Heavy Peace" and finding it very entertaining. You might not agree with all his politics, but you have to admire his dedication, perseverance and commitment to his various causes such as Lionel Trains, The Bridge School, Farm Aid, Electric cars, alternate fuels and now better audio sound quality.

On a walk behind the campground, I spotted a complete snake skeleton up on top of a Saguaro arm, very odd, wonder how it got there ?

Twinkles and I went back and took it down, I suppose we will add it to the collection.

Also another short hike on the Yetman trail at Saguaro Park with nice cloudy conditions that spice up the photos out in the desert. So many hiking trails here, all good.

I went to the 2nd Saturday event in downtown Tucson which is an event they do every month trying to get people back downtown. They had a stage set up with a few bands playing and and food vendors. It was below freezing so not very well attended. I then stopped at two restaurant/cafes to listen to live music, the Iguana Cafe with a rough, hard, dangerous looking crowd, but a pretty good band. I then went a couple of blocks away to Elliot"s on Congress which is more of a college crowd where one of the hot new Tucson bands, Copper and Congress, was playing. I love this band, (Copper and Congress), but the music was actually better at the dive !

I'm planning to go skiing at Mt. Lemmon on Monday, it is over 9,000 ft elevation, the southern most ski area in North America and the report is that there is lots of natural snow.

This is our last week at Desert Trails, it's time to move on, next stop is the San Jose RV Resort in Bisbee, Arizona.