March 8, 2022
On Saturday we took our last trip to Tucson. Benjamin, Tomas and Grayett went to a Gun Show at the Pima County Fairgrounds while Gabriella and I took the truck to get new rear tires. We discovered a flat rear tire right as we were leaving town. I was so thankful that the flat occurred overnight, and not while we were driving. For lunch, we all enjoyed some In and Out Burgers. We all agreed these are yummy burgers, but were not as impressed with the fries. Afterwards, we did a final hike in Saguaro National Park. We hiked another Mine trail and this trail led up to what we think is an old copper mine.There was a grate covering the mine entrance with a barbed wire fence around it, thankfully. We tried dropping rocks through the grate to see if we could determine how deep the hole went but were unsuccessful. Walking away from the mine my comment to Benjamin was, "I don't think I could ever be a miner, to work in dark, tight spaces underground." (Shiver)
Sunday we went on our longest and perhaps more challenging hike called the Mustang Trail. The trail began on an easier trail called the Arivaca Creek trail, a trail that follows a figure 8 pattern we did earlier the previous week. After a little while, we got onto Mustang Trail, which leave the creek bed and begins to climb up a mountain. We climbed nearly 1,000 feet up to the summit of the mountain. The trip was 4.65 miles and took us 2 hours and 33 minutes. The views from the summit were nice and I was proud of how well the kids did on this hike! Way to go Gabriella and Tomas!
Today, (Tuesday) we stopped by White Sands National Park. I really like how soft gypsum sand is! It is also a brilliant white! This was Lyla's first time experiencing sand and since the kids were "sledding" down the sand dunes, she treated it like snow. Lyla loves snow and she loves when the kids are at the sledding hill near our house. She loves to run up and down the hill and to eat snowballs. Yes, she did try to eat some sand, I suspect she found it wasn't at tasty as snow. We didn't do a hike in the park, partly because we had 5 hours to drive until our overnight location, but also because we would have to drive on sand since the pavement in the park stops after a short distance. The previous day, we drove to what we thought as Fort Bowie National Monument's (AZ) visitor center only to find it was the trail head to the visitor center, a 1.5 mile hike away. The drive to this for was on a gravel road, which we are quite used to at this point, but up some mountains and around some curves. It was a narrow road and we were uncertain as to whether we'd be able to turn around. (Eeeek!) I know you've read it here before, but Benjamin is a great driving and and even better at towing and maneuvering the RV. We were able to turn around and not have to back down and around the mountain. Anyway, after the experience, we decided not to take another chance today. So I can't say too much more about the park other than the sand is beautiful and sledding was fun!
Ester
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