Arizona Desert Museum

Well, we are still in Tucson. Our refrigerator quit working over the weekend so when we got in to La Mesa RV on Monday to have the black water flush replacement installed they changed out the thermostate and told us to go home and if it worked we were free to go and if not it probably was the cooling unit. Guess what? It didn't work so they have ordered a new cooling unit that will be in Thursday or Friday. In the mean time we threw away everything in the refrigerator except the wine and cheese and bought another ice chest so that we could buy some milk.

We also found out that the extended warrenty salesman never got our signed contract so we don't have an extended warrenty. Of course they charged the credit card last August but no policy was ever registered with the warrenty people. Thank goodness the refrigerator is covered by Norcold.

Since we were going to spend some extra days in Tucson we decided to go out to the Arizona Desert Museum. They have all kinds of cacti over the mile and a half walking trail.

They also have a variety of wild reptiles crawling around. Wayne found one for me to come see.

This little fellow was very friendly and both Wayne and I were able to get very close.

There were gardens for bees, moths, and butterflies. This is the butterfly garden and if you look closely you will see one in the upper left quarter of the picture.

This is also the area where the Segura cactus grow and as you can see they get very tall.

This is the sculpture outside the aviary. It shows the presumed evolution of our current birds.

Here are a few of the birds that we saw.

The had a separate aviary for humming birds. We were able to observe two hummers in their nests.

The mountain lion was getting out from the heat but he did look up and Wayne got a really good picture of him.

They also had several big horn sheep.

The Mexican wolf was also trying to stay cool under this tree.

These Mexican parrots were in an area all by themselves.

As we exited one of the indoor exhibits there was an area where you could dig through the mine dumpings to see if you could find anything of value.

Wayne also made friends with a squirrel.

One of the inside exhibits had reptiles in it.

As usual I took a lot more pictures so if you want to see more you can see them here: http://picasaweb.google.com/marynelle/DesertMuseum?feat=directlink.

Hopefully the next time I write we will be in California.

Tucson, AZ

Wayne got his stitches out on Wednesday morning and we left at noon headed for Tucson, AZ. We stopped at a rest stop along the way called Texas Canyon. It was very pretty.





This is Wayne coming around the corner of the building.

We spent the night in Las Cruces in a Wal-Mart parking lot. We arrived at David-Monthan AFB fam-camp around noon on Thursday. Wayne is walking back to our motorhome,the third one on the right

We can see the airplanes that are in storage here in this dry climate from the door of our motorhome.

We drove around and looked at some of the airplanes that are in mothballs.

They even have an old Air Force One in storage here

The cactus plants in the RV park are really pretty. They have lots of different kinds.

Someone even painted some of the rocks in the landscaping.

Friday I met my high school friend, Bobbie, for lunch and some shopping. It was such fun seeing her again. On Saturday she came over to the motorhome and gave me some tips on jewelry making. She is an expert at it.

The motorhome is waiting for a part to come in on Monday so we won't be leaving for San Diego until Tuesday.

Wayne saw the PA at the doctor's office and they still can't figure out why he is having trouble breathing but they don't think it is life threatening so we decided to go ahead and leave on our trip. The first stop was the Top of The Hill RV Park in Boerne, TX.



We dropped off the motorhome and left for Spring Branch to store some items that we didn't want to take on the trip with us. On the way we saw some strange looking "horses" so we stopped on our way back to take pictures. These three zebras were calmly grazing where they could be seen from the road.

We stopped to eat at PoPo's Family Restaurant on the way back to the RV park. It was a dance hall in the early 1900's and during prohibition the bootleggers sold shots outside for 25 cents.

The restaurant changed hands several times and one of the owners collected plates from all of the places that they visited. They put them up all over the restaurant and several other people gave them additional plates.

At last count there were over 2100 plates. It was a very interesting place.

After dinner I got this shot of the sunset from our site.

We got hit by a lot of bugs coming to Boerne so Wayne had to clean the front of the coach.

Wednesday morning we drove into San Antonio so Dr. Day could take out Wayne's stitches. They glued him together and put some tape over it and sent us on our way. As soon as we got to the first rest stop after Boerne, Marynelle took over the driving and drove for about two hours.

After Wayne took back over the driving I got a few pictures of the scenery.

This is a picture of some of the large windmills that line the mesas in West Texas.

This is a closer view of the windmills.

We drove until we reached Las Crusas, NM after dark and found a nice Super Wal-Mart to spend the night. Tomorrow we head to Tucson.

Friends and my "Frankenstein monster"

Our jack rabbit friends were back yesterday evening. This one seemed to be settled in for the night and I was able to walk up really close.



This rabbit was still in active alert mode.



We met our cruising buddies, Syrena and Gene Doven, for dinner and then they came over so sit out and visit for a while. Syrena has had recent knee surgery so climbing into the motorhome was out of the question.



Responses from my last email convinced Wayne that he should let me take his picture and post it to our blog. This is what he looks like most of the time:



Note the left arm in the brace. He sprained it the first day that we got here when he tripped over a wire attaching the motorhome to the car.

And this is my "Frankenstein monster!"




He will get the stitches out Monday so he will look much better when we leave for our trip. He says he will look five years younger. That's just what I need!

Back to Corpus Christi for Easter

Since our last entry, we have been to San Antonio to have a skin cancer removed from Wayne's forehead. I tried to get him to let me post a picture of him but he refused. I called him Frankenstein after the surgery because he has about a 5 inch incision across his forehead. The doctor told him that he had given him a brow lift.

Rather than sit around in San Antonio for a week, we decided to come to Corpus Christi and see if Wayne could get an appointment with his cardiologist and if I could get my hand looked at. As it turned out, Wayne fell while unhooking the car so we both went to our GP. Wayne has a sprained wrist and I have arthritis in my right thumb.

We are staying at Shields RV Park at the Navel Air Station where we have stayed many times before. They have added twelve new sites to the park and opened up another area for RVs as well. We are staying at one of the new sites and have a nice view of the water from both sides.




We also have a good view of the jack rabbits that come really close to feed.



Unfortunately, they didn't like it when I came out of the motorhome.



We've been getting regular updates from Spike, the wagonmaster of the Alaskan caravan that we will be going on. He had kept us up to date on Mt. Redoubt, the volcano that blew and that so far has not affected where we will be going.



He says that he and the crew are waiting for us.



Spike and his wife are the couple in the middle. We are getting excited.