Winter 26: Arizona

Saguaro National Park

Shortly after the truck/RV incident, we were determined to not have it impact our winter travel plans.   Shortly after we returned home, we found out our son was going to move back in, so would not need to include the dog in our plans, as she would stay home with our son.  Our goal was to be more nimble,  and take some side trips we normally wouldn't or couldn't with a large RV or a dog. I started looking at options for the Tucson area, and friends of ours had plans to stay in the Mesa area.  We found Airbnb accomodations in Tucson and Mesa, then planned a side trip to California in-between.

One of the first examples of this new found freedom was the stopping in Omaha to see our son's band, Berzica, play on their first night of an eight-day tour!

While in Tucson, we enjoyed much more hiking, some biking, a little golf, and finally visited the Pima Air & Space Museum.

Tim got more creative with his hiking videos - here are a couple from our time in Arizona:

• Badad Do’ag Trail 
• Bear Canyon to Seven Falls
• Camelback via the Cholla Trail

Before we checked into our Mesa accomodations, we stayed near the Phoenix airport, flew out to LAX to take in the Channel Islands and Catalina Island.    That post is here.

Upon returning to Phoenix, we spent the next two weeks hanging out with our close friends, a little golf, more hiking and a couple of spring training games.  

It was then time to head back to MN, and we had a tentative plan to knock off another few National Parks, if weather allowed.  Since the weather was pretty fantastic, we headed north, and for the first time in years, skipped Texas altogether.  In fact, the Airbnb in Mesa was so horrible we actually left before our reservation was over to head up to Sedona and the Grand Canyon and then headed up to Utah.   That post is here.

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