Tucson, Arizona -- and other interesting things

A friend I met during a Road Scholar trip several years ago told me about this RV resort in Tucson and it sounded so interesting that I had to go and spend a little time there to see if I might not actually go there for a month or more during the cold winter months. This years visit was what I call an exploratory adventure. 
The Voyager RV Resort is rated number one by at least one rating agency and it does indeed seem to be a very well run establishment. It is made up of Permanent mobile homes and casitas; these are smaller mobile homes - one bedroom, bath and kitchen/living room with a pull in carport and a covered patio where one can sit and watch the world go by. The rest of the place is  open area for those land yachts to pull in and spend weeks or months on a pad and when the weather or the mood strikes, off they go to other adventures.
In addition to the living facilities the resort offers a multitude of activities to busy oneself during the day and evening. There is an onsite restaurant and bar --with lots of meet and greet activities and football parties. Then for the physically active there is pickleball, tennis, swimming aerobics, fitness room lots of varying exercise classes. Lots of folks ride bikes here, but if you are in to that, you have to bring your own. Other activities are crafts galore, including jewelry and silversmithing, woodworking, ceramics, several discussion groups, card and domino events and pool shooting for those interested. 
It all sounded great, but since I was staying only a week I found that it was hard to enjoy the activities since most were offered on a 4 or 6 week continuing series basis. Hardly worthwhile for a person staying only one week. So, while there was a lot to be enjoyed, I somehow didn't get the full benefit of it. I did spend the week enjoying all the sites that Tucson and the surrounding area had to offer and so you will be hearing no complaints from me. My little casita was very comfortable and private and allowed me to prepare most of the meals easily in the fully furnished kitchen.

I enjoyed a visit to the Colossal Cave which is  just east of Tucson and the tour was very informative. It is one of the few caves that has a constant temperature of 70 degrees -- I found that to be unusual, since all the other ones I have visited are usually somewhere around 40 or so.

The Sonora Desert Museum is a must see stop in Tucson, if you see nothing else. It is a walkable loop botanical garden - zoo and at each turn you see something else that is just amazing. There were animals which included fox, coyote, javalina, a variety of snakes, 2 separate bird aviaries and lots of cacti. They offered tours and videos as well so one could easily spend an entire day there, but I had other ideas. I timed my visit in mid morning so that I could escape and enjoy lunch at what may be the best Mexican restaurant in Tucson. 

On my other days of exploring I went to Sabino Canyon for a tour and hiking. It was one of the highlights of trip and I also spent an afternoon hiking with friends in the Sagauro National Park West on a five mile loop trail, which was also very nice, but it seemed longer and there were moments that we all thought somewhere along the way we must have made a wrong turn and were assuredly lost. But, in fact, we were always on the trail and really appreciated finding the end. While I saw a lot while I was there, I left quite a few things for perhaps another trip --the Pima air museum, Tombstone and several other interesting places.

Here are the photos

The best Mexican Restaurant that I found while in Tucson was Cafe Poca Cosa located at 110mEast Pennington Street, Tucson, Az. i actually went there three times. The first to discover

 Here I learned that each day the menu is created not once but twice. Generally 2 or 3 chicken dishes 2 beef dishes one fish and one vegetarian. Then you may notice that the bottom of the menu has a selection that is larger that the rest. This allows you to sample three of the chefs choice on one dish. I opted for the chefs choice twice out of my three visits and each meal was superb. The food was so good that I had to stop between bites and just savor the wonderful flavors.

On my first choice I got a cod fish sample in a robust clear sauce, a shredded beef dish and the vegetarian selection of the day. They were all fabulous -- oh you also get a great salsa and chips beans that alone would make a great meal, rice and tortillas. The beer was extra. Ha!

 On my third and last visit, I stopped for lunch on the Saturday before my early morning flight out the next day. I had just finished a week of volunteering at the Bird Sanctuary near Benson and was ready for some really good food. Charlie was my waiter and the first thing he said was "how are you doing today?" me. "well, not so good my phone has no cell service. I showed it to him and he insisted that I use his phone to call ATT to fix whatever the problem was. It required me to go out of the restaurant so I could hear the technician. Well, five minutes later I was all connected and happy as a clam. That is why he is standing there telling me about the menu with his Iphone in his hand. I was really happy to have my phone back in working order. It was a really good thing too, because, little did I know at the time that when I finished my meal I would find my rental car had a flat tire and I would REALLY need a phone.

Alls well that ends well. The flat was fixed in less than an hour and I went back to my hotel one happy camper!