Exploring Tucson – Saguaros, Snow and Sustenance
There are three key ingredients to a great town or city: soul, sustenance and youth. If a town has all three plus scenery or major points of interest (national park, monument, preserve…) or both, then it gets bumped from great town to great destination.
Tucson has a little of each and made it in our top five destinations for Arizona.
Pretending to be Retired…a look into the future
While traveling through Arizona and filming different RV Resorts we've had our share of experiences, but our stay in Mesa at the Viewpoint RV and Golf Resort was definitely unique.
This resort marked many firsts for us: our first 55+ resort, our first RV Resort with a golf course and our first RV Resort with free fruit everywhere.
Mesa and Phoenix: Markets, Food Trucks and The Apache Trail
We always have fun throwing out the phrase "we get around" but while staying in Mesa, Arizona we definitly lived up to the self proclaimed reputation.
This was one of those places we drove so much we almost proclaimed ourselves offical car tourist too! Ok, maybe that's an exaggeration, but we were super happy to have our 40mpg car! Mesa is just a short drive from the Superstition Mountains, downtown Phoenix and the famous Apache Trail. We visited all of them and everything in between.
Casa Grande – Ancient Indian Ruins and Retirees
Casa Grande, Arizona is a small town centrally located between Phoenix and Tucson. Did I mention it was small? The population is around 50,000 but it feels much smaller, in a good way. It’s a popular destination for winter visitors (aka snowbirds) looking to escape the northern chill, this town’s population explodes during the winter months. With small town charm, National Monuments, moderate hiking, plenty of history, and winter temperatures in the 70’s, we can see why.
The Painted Desert: where rocks morph into fiery colors
The Painted Desert is a vast rocky badlands alongside historic Route 66 that stretches from Arizona’s Grand Canyon to the Petrified Forest. Funny little tidbit: The Painted Desert isn't a desert at all; it’s actually the largest intact Grassland in the Southwest.
We had no idea the Painted Desert covered such a wide area and we weren't sure what to expect from this national park. The park receives little to no recognition, or visitors, in comparison to its neighbor the Grand Canyon, and to be perfectly honest we weren't convinced it was worth freezing our butts off (it was 20 degrees) or the drive.
