Where’s Ollie?

[Mike and Carol]

Lance, we love that campground too!  Mike

[Mike and Carol]

This is Aguirre Spring in January…

 

 

[jd1923]

The Santa Catalina Mountains from the Catalina State Park of Arizona. Was dry as bone here, no real precip this season, daily highs in the 80s!

[Mike and Carol]

Catalina State Park is one of our favorites.  Looks like your at the site next to the trailhead?

[DaveAndBecky_NorthernMI]

14 hours ago, jd1923 said:

The Santa Catalina Mountains from the Catalina State Park of Arizona. Was dry as bone here, no real precip this season, daily highs in the 80s!

Catalina is a beautiful park for sure. Those Oro Valley sunsets from the park are amazing. We stayed there in March 2023 and 2024. In 2023, we arrived just after the entry road reopened from a flooding event. In 2024, we were in the park and had park host informed us the road had flooded and we had to stay another two night or two. Darn 🤞

[Mike and Carol]

46 minutes ago, DaveAndBecky_NorthernMI said:

Catalina is a beautiful park for sure. Those Oro Valley sunsets from the park are amazing. We stayed there in March 2023 and 2024. In 2023, we arrived just after the entry road reopened from a flooding event. In 2024, we were in the park and had park host informed us the road had flooded and we had to stay another two night or two. Darn 🤞

A few years ago we were headed to Catalina from Rockhound SP in Deming, NM.  We got a call that morning that the park was closed, the road had flooded (again) and was closed.  They were able to get us in to Lost Dutchman so we just kept driving past Tucson!

[MAX Burner]

15 hours ago, Mike and Carol said:

Catalina State Park is one of our favorites.  

Same here.... We were there in 2021, definitely one of our favs!

[Snackchaser]

We were down in Cabo San Lucas last month and saw an Oliver parked on the beach!  Unfortunately we were headed to the airport and couldn’t stop, but Iv'e been wondering who that was, and how the trip down Baja went?

I’d love to make that trip in the Oliver too!  But not without the backup and support of a large group.  

[jd1923]

3 hours ago, Mike and Carol said:

A few years ago we were headed to Catalina from Rockhound SP in Deming, NM.  We got a call that morning that the park was closed, the road had flooded (again) and was closed.  They were able to get us in to Lost Dutchman so we just kept driving past Tucson!

That was lucky! 4-5 weeks ahead I looked at both parks plus ALL of the Maricopa Regional Parks. There was not a single night available for the week of Feb 24th,  in any local park between Prescott and Tucson. Then two weeks out a Thursday night at Catalina opened up and I grabbed it. A few days later the Monday night opened at Lost Dutchman. That was our first night out and I like when the first day is less driving, Lost Dutchman being half the distance to Catalina from our home. Then a week before Catalina had a Wednesday opening so we got 2 nights, at two different sites of course. I wondered, what would they do for a flood?

Our visit to Catalina SP was OK, not great. After the first night we moved to the new site at noon and had the day to investigate. I wanted to see the town of Oracle AZ and drive into the north end of Coronado NF to take the back route up to Mt. Lemmon. We got a few miles past Oracle and there was an obvious Temperature Inversion. All of the dust from the dry conditions of the valleys were trapped so that we were driving through a huge cloud of dust! After sneezing a couple of times and the look of things we abandoned our trip. You could not see through the haze at all, not a single view of Santa Catalina Mountains while climbing up!

One reason for your visit was to meet friends who had recently purchased a home in nearby SaddleBrooke Ranch. We played pickleball with them and others in the community on two evenings and had a great time. Dinner at their home the first night and a good strong hot shower the next morning!

Drove up to Wickenburg for our last night, taking a detour around Phoenix to Gila Bend, Buckeye and up. We often prefer driving the back way up Hwy 89 to Prescott vs. I-17 (currently on a 5-year construction plan to widen it). This picture was taken from Constellation Park (found on Campendium $10/night) looking down at the town of Wickenburg. There was one site left available at 5PM! It was a short and sweet trip and we're back home today for the day of rest!

[jd1923]

Where’s Ollie? She’s in the snow! Not a biggie for many of you, but our first snowfall of this very dry season. Got 4” overnight but already half melted with temps near 40F now. Would be gone already if the sun had come out today!

[johnwen]

[topgun2]

🥶

You've had more snow in one day than we have had all winter (so far).

[jd1923]

1 hour ago, topgun2 said:

🥶

You've had more snow in one day than we have had all winter (so far).

Love the fox!

It was the perfect snow, snowing while we were sleeping. It only stuck to soft surfaces since two days ago it was 60F and the streets and sidewalks were well above freezing. This never happened when we lived in the Midwest, LOL! We did shovel the decks to keep the redwood in good shape and we took a truly enjoyable late afternoon walk! 😂