March 3 to 5, 2011; Tubac to Casa Grande, AZ

MAR 3, Thursday, Tubac; sunny and warm
I got up this morning to find the toilet bowl overflowing! It even got the carpet on the stairs wet. I cleaned it and check the valve but all seemed OK. Now the water barely comes out when flushing the toilet so will have to get a new valve I think.
We left around 11 am for Tubac but first, we had to pick up two geo-caches. We eventually made it to the Info Centre and got some pamphlets then went to the “Presidio”, the original site of Tubac. Tubac was first populated by Piman Indians. In 1691, Jesuit Francisco Kino came to the area and built a mission. Colonist (Spanish and Mexican) began settling the area but the Apache gave them a run for their money and the area was abandoned a couple times over the next century. Tubac was the first European settlement in Western North America and played a major role in the Anza Trail to what was to become San Francisco, California. Now Tubac is a tourist attraction and full of art and craft shops. There is a trail nearby which goes from the Mission to Tubac, a four miles walk. We had lunch at the “Old Tubac Inn” then walked the village with all its shops (very expensive by the way). At the end of the day, we went to find two more caches, stopped at this neat place with a huge bed, took a couple pictures, stopped at a side road pub then came home.
We had a quick Happy Hour then it was dinner time and relax evening catching up to all the pictures and the blog.


MAR 4, Friday, HAPPY BIRTHDAY VAL!
The day began with a drive to the Tumacacori Mission, a National historical Park. We were in time for the guided tour of the Mission dating back to the late 1600’s. It was built first by the Jesuit and finally partially completed by the Franciscans in 1828 when they were forced to leave due to the area sold to the US. The history in this region is quite vivid with Apache war.
Dave and Louise had to go back to get new shoes so we walked the Anza Trail to Tubac, a 4.5 miles hike. It took us two hours and we met D&L at the pub where I downed two beers quickly to quench my thirst. Then it was time to find a cache in the old cemetery. IT consisted of finding 8 grave stone and figure out a puzzle. Then the resulting coordinate take you to the actual cache. We completed it but unfortunately we ended up with the wrong numbers and didn’t have time to redo it. We did find one that we couldn’t find yesterday though
At 6 pm, Dave and Louise took us to a local restaurant and we had a marvellous dinner at their expense to celebrate Val and my birthday and to thank us for the last 3 months in Mexico. Live music was being played and we had a lot of laughs reminiscing over the last months. We came home and had a nightcap at their place then it was time to say goodnight.
Tomorrow, we separate and go each our way but will meet again in Indio California


MAR 5, Saturday, MY BIRTHDAY! And to Casa Grande, Arizona
We got up around 8 am to sunny warm and forecast of 77 to 82*F! We said our final goodbyes to Dave and Louise then we began our own packing. We left at 10 am and stopped at Camping World to get the toilet fix but no service on Saturday. I consoled myself by buying a couple items. We went to Denny’s for a quick bite to eat. I got a surprise call from our neighbours back at home who are presently in Mesa so we will try to see them before we move on. We then got on I-10 and drove to Casa Grande. We arrived here at 2:30pm, booked in under AOR and set up at site 109. It’s warm out there and we are content! Oh, and we got all our mail and the new GPS so now I have a few magazines to read and all the paper work for my income tax on line. We got a call from our friends Louise and Ron whom we had met in the Baja a couple years back. They are in southern California and just came out of Mexico where they spent a few months in the Baja.

N 32* 55.270
W 111* 45.222
Alt 1386

We travelled 115 miles (185 Km) in 2 hrs and 20 minutes at an average speed of 49 MPH and were stopped for 2 hours.