Snowbird Route, Part Deux

As about anyone could predict, the weather was warm and dry for our departure from Surprise/Phoenix.  Getting to Surprise brought us through some impressive desert views of saguaro cacti, sage brush and creosote bush.  We were looking forward to what today would bring.

Most of our day will be spent on I-10 and we will pass by familiar place names like Casa Grande and Tucson, and lots and lots of wide open, sparsely populated desert.

One of several old churches in Casa Grande.  Photo courtesy of Visit Casa Grande.org

Tucson on a clear day.  Not my photo.

There is nearly a 140 mile stretch with only the tiniest of widely-spread communities along the way.  I have a little bit of anxiety about making this trip with the uncertainty of the reliability of my leak-prone tire but the day looks inviting for travel.

Looking east towards New Mexico from near the AZ/NM border.

Today's goal, Dream Catcher RV is 360 miles away.  This is about 150 miles more than we prefer to do.  Now that we are not having to cram in as many miles as possible because we only have 5 days of vacation to get to where we want to go, we have set a rule of driving no more than four hours a day.  It is not a hard rule, just more of a desire to do it that way because we can now.  But we have burned up a lot of time staying extra days in North Las Vegas and Surprise and the time is growing close to our due date to be in Big Bend.

Despite the additional miles we made good time and got to Dream Catcher RV with plenty of daylight left to get hooked up.  The park is one of several that are in the Escapees system.  Escapees is a club that we belong to and it has a network of RV parks.  The headquarters is in Livingston, TX and that is where the mail forwarding business is operated from.  Some of the club parks are for members only and some will take on anyone if space is available.   One of the nice things about the Escapee parks is that you rarely need a reservation.  All but two or three of them you can just drive in and register.  We did just that and got a great pull-thru site that was just right for a one night stay.  But no matter how you look at it, this place is a typical desert RV park.  There are a few trees here and there but they are stunted from the harsh environment and pose no obstacle to our satellite dish or promise shade. 

Getting in and hooked up before the sun went down gave us time to go looking for some local Mexican food. We found ourselves at Si Senor and ordering taco salads.



The taco salad was okay, not something that would have compelled me to come back a couple of times a week, but it hit the spot.  What brought the whole dinner up a notch was a complements-of-the-chef sopapilla.  Way off our diet menu but we didn't let that stop us, or from using copious amounts of honey.  We were just finishing up our dinner expecting the waitress to drop off the ticket but instead she dropped off a plate with a giant sopapilla, very nice.

Time to get home and get some sleep.  Today may have been a longer drive than our ideal distance but tomorrow is going to be about the same as today.  Fort Stockton is 350 miles away so we will be getting up early and getting on our way.