The majority of us SoloTrekkers. There are three or four missing.
I am so far behind that I am not sure how I will post anything that has happened. I need a week with good Wi-Fi service to catch up. Every morning we met in the Rec Hall for breakfast/coffee at 9:00 and each evening again at 4:00 for Happy Hour.
Sunday – Hung around most of the day. I was thinking of going to Tubac to the Arts Festival. That is the reason Sandy and I decided to arrive on the 12th instead of the 15th. After driving for two full days, though, I just couldn’t get my act together.
I spent a good part of the morning meeting Marie who is from Syracuse, NY. She has two dogs, Grover and Sahara. Marie left Syracuse in September (?). After this week, she will head up to Utah and visit an animal sanctuary up there. Her hopes are to stay for a couple of weeks and volunteer. Unfortunately, Marie fell ill and hid in her van for most of the week. She came down with viral pneumonia. She eventually did go to a doctor and was feeling much better by the following Saturday.
During the afternoon, I hung out with Nikki and a few of the other women. Then, immediately after lunch, I received a call from Jan (I think) who was at the Tubac Festival of the Arts with two of the other SoloTrekkers. She called to see if I was at Tuback and to tell me where they were meeting up for lunch. Drat! I eventually did get back to Tubac, twice even, but I did miss the Arts Festival.
Monday – The official day of arrival for the SoloTrekker’s Rendezvous Thing. During our morning breakfast meeting, we strategize about what to do for the week. This was a very relaxed, sort of off-the-cuff kind of gathering; it wasn’t a structured, organized event. Within a couple of hours, we had the following schedule set:
Monday: Official arrival day, crash day, meet-and-greet everyone with a pot-luck dinner day
Tuesday: Sonoran Hot Dog Luncheon, Open House rigs (or what we officially called The Non-Judgemental Progressive Rig Viewing) and the buffet at the Desert Diamond Casino for dinner
Wednesday: An all-day hike with Cara or a trip to Patagonia State ParkThursday: San Xavier del Bac Mission (aka the White Dove of the Desert)
Friday: A half-day hike with Cara or a trip to Karchner Caverns, Bisbee, and Tombstone
Saturday: Whipple Observatory
Sunday: Departure day for those who did not leave on Saturday
After breakfast and getting our schedule set, Nikki said she had to go to the grocery store to pick up food for tonight’s pot luck. I told her that since I had to unhook to dump my tanks and I needed eggs that I would drive her to the grocery store, which thrilled her because she really didn’t want to drive. We were gone about two hours between shopping and grabbing a bite to eat for lunch. When we got back, I prepared my contribution to the pot luck which was what I called Grilled Chicken-a-la-King.
I grilled chicken strips on my Weber grill and, wouldn’t you know it, ran out of gas when the first side of the chicken strips were half cooked. I hoped to God that the campground store had propane tanks. (Yes, they did – one!) The grilled chicken went into the crockpot along with mushrooms, peas, carrots, celery, and herb-flavored cream of chicken soup. It didn’t all go the first night, but 99.9% of it disappeared the next time I put it out for dinner.
Because we had approximately 20 SoloTrekkers and because those 20 SoloTrekkers brought food, we had enough for dinner the next night and also two nights later.
I don’t remember which night it was, but one night, Olly got out. I had set up my screen room and was sitting in it while attempting to catch up on my blog. The door to the van was open and I saw the little bat-eared silhouetted shadowed against the door. If he jumped out, I expected him to come over near me so I could grab him, plus, there was that BIG DENIAL – Oh, no. He won’t jump out the door! Not my good Olly. Yeah, right. Not only did he slink out the door, he immediately turned and slunk under the van. Because I was in the screen room, I had to unzip it first to get out and then run around to the other side of the van. By the time I got there, he was long gone.
I knew he would be back. He never goes far. I was worried about the wild animals, specifically coyotes. Within an hour, I was frantic. I went back to the Rec hall to see if anyone was there and to tell them to watch for my cat. Those who were there told me to put some of my clothing outside, leave the door open, and put food out for him; so that’s what I did. I put his favorite Texas Tech Snuggie blanket outside, kept the door open three or four inches, and left a bowl of canned food inside on the passenger seat. At 1:00 in the morning, Olly bopped back into the van like nothing was ever wrong. Little Turd!
Pictures of Arizona Flora. I forgot to take a picture of the barrel cactus. All of these plants are on the Mountain View RV Park property:
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