Casa Grande, AZ and Saguaro National Park

Where in the World are Keith and Kathy?

The past two weeks we have been parked in Casa Grande, Arizona. Some photos of the southern Arizona landscape around Casa Grande are provided below:

Soutern Arizona Landscape

Agriculture in Southern Arizona

Southern Arizona Skyscape

The first five nights in Casa Grande, we were parked at the Pinal County Fairgrounds with 250 other RV’s, attending the second annual western area Gypsy Rally. “What do you do at a rally?” you may be asking yourself. Well, it depends on who sponsors the rally. The excellent Gypsy Rally focused primarily on RV education, targeted at extended and full time Rvers who already know the basics. Seminars included such topics fire safety, driver training, tire pressure monitors, creative writing, RV New Zeeland, bloging basics, etc.

This blog is a result of the latter seminar, presented by a husband and wife team doing business as Geeks on Tour, http://www.geeksontour.com/ . In this extremely well presented tutorial we learned what a blog is, and how to create one using a free service provided by Google. Another outstanding seminar, presented by Dave Baleria, covered all aspects of membership campgrounds, including all the traps. There are some good companies out there, but the procurement process can be a minefield.

The rally also featured a wide variety of vendors, ranging from arts & crafts, to RV accessories, to books and software products. Coffee and donuts were provided every morning, and some sort of evening activity was offered every night, including a pizza party.

We left the muddy fairgrounds parking area Thursday evening, just ahead of the rain, and moved to Rovers Roost, a beautiful SKP Co-op park on the west side of Casa Grande. Saturday morning Kathy flew to Massachusetts to visit her grandchildren. Keith spent the week mostly doing camper cores such as carpet cleaning, etc. However, he did take a day off to visit the nearby Saguaro National Park.

The Saguaro Cactus, with it’s thick central barrel and upright side arms, is an icon of the southwestern desert because of it’s distinctive appearance:

Desert Icon

Despite it’s iconic status, the Saguaro has a limited range, and can be seen in relatively few places. The Saguaro National Park, just outside of Tuscon, contains an interesting and unusual collection of plant and animal life, dominated by the namesake plant. With summer temperatures over 100F, February is definitely the time to visit. There are two sections of the park (east and west), both with excellent visitors centers. Keith visited the west section. After stopping at the visitors center, he drove a gravel road through the mountains back to Tuscon, stopping to snap photos frequently. A few of the pix are provided below.

Our next stop is a NASCAR event at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Stay tuned.

Yellow Highway Marker

Suguaro National Park (west) Visitors Center

Creosote Bush, Prickly Pear, Cholla, and Suguaro

Cholla

Barrel Blooms

Exploring the Outback

Descending into Tuscon