But, here we are, in the south, with flowers blooming, people walking around in t-shirts, sandals, but there are Christmas trees, looking kind of out of place to me….
We roamed around in Tucson for a while, i liked it there, quite a beautiful city, and i took some interesting photos.
Tucson has 350 days of sunshine per year, so needless to say, its a popular place.
The downtown area is beautiful, with architecture using the desert colors, succulents growing every where, the streets are clean, people are friendly.
They would come over to us, while we were having our coffee, and show interest in who we are, where we came from, we definately must have looked different, or weird, not sure, but their interest was very genuine!

details of a bus stop.

In Flagstaff,we met Les ,Donna and Barkely ,the golden retriever. Some of you know, i used to have a golden as a pet, Nanauk, she was with me for 15 1/2 years, well, i so fell in love with Barkely, such a kind, loving dog, easy going, and so loyal to his owners. Les and Donna were going South too, towards Phoenix, so we hoped to see them again.
We ended up in the same KOA campgrouns as them, after first going to another place, full of very fancy motor homes and even fancier owners.
In the KOA campground, we had a nice spot, in the far corner, surrounded by cacti and two lovely Amish people for neighbours, who brought us oranges from a local orchard.
We made dinners together with les and Donna, and went shopping. They were going to stay in the area for Christmas as they had family in the area, we decided to head south towards the ocean again.
Between Phoenix and Tucson, we stayed in a nice RV place, they gave us a spot totally surrounded by orange,lemon and grapefruit trees, what a treat!!
no one seemed to pick them, some of the fruit was huge, so we first picked just a few, ate them all, they were absolutely superb!!!!!
So…. we filled three bags with them, no one minded, they were just going to let them hang there, they did tell us that you have to be careful,and make sure to pick the fresh ones, some of them could be from last years crop.

An incredible sky awaited us, how beautiful ,and a great welcome!

The road winds up the hill side, looking down, over the side , we realized how high we were going, the road becomes a wash board ,from cars going up and down too fast, we met 2 trucks, and both were driving at a break neck speed!!! good grief, you really dont want to go over the side here, nothing to stop you other then the odd ,giant cactus!!! The weather stayed cloudy, no rain though, because of the cloud, the colors were very subdued, mostly a beautiful, soft sage green, light orange, and the browns of the rocks. And, it was so quiet, just not a sound, not a bird song, nothing.

The base of the road is sand, beautifully colored sand, a light orange, along side are cacti, some small Beavertail cactus, some very large Saguaro cacti, growing all the way up the cliff sides. I love the desert Agave,also known as the desert Century plant, some were still blooming, on stalks, 8 feet high. here and there are Ocotillo, long stalks , also known as old mans walking sticks, all of those were totally dried up, but looking at them closely, we noticed tiny little green leaves coming out of the stems.

Roosevelt dam is the first one you come to after the bridge, then Horse Mesa dam, Mormon flat dam, and a dam at Salt River Indian reservation,i could’t fine a name for it.