Departing Tucson

Thought I better bring this blog up to date, if not for those who may try to keep up with us, then just to keep up my historical record of where we’ve been or what we have done.
After departing Sabino Canyon, we parked the RV at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base(DMAFB) and flew back East to visit our kids, grandkids and my parents. We managed to have this visit coincide with Sam's birthday. Birthdays are special times and just maybe we will be able to attend a few more of them in the future. Another short visit, we decided we needed more time so our next visit may be a bit longer and we will, in all likelihood, head back East after Yellowstone this coming summer.
On returning to Tucson after our trip east we got tickets and went to see a great production of the Nutcracker Suite on Christmas Eve. We had two Christmas dinners: a party put on by the DMAFB RV Park and a great Christmas dinner at the chow hall on base. Military members, their wives and kids, all manned the serving line, giving up some of their Christmas day to bring Christmas dinner to those who could not head home for the holiday.
We departed DM for Kartchner State Park and the Kartchner caverns, a magnificent recently discovered cave, that has been meticulously managed and developed to preserve its natural qualities – no colored lights, no music played on stalactites, and little focus on the naming of the features but a lot of geology facts. From there, a quick trip to Douglas AZ and Agua Parieta Mexico for some golf, shopping, and some dental work. Then we headed a short distance to Naco, AZ so I could play the Turquoise Valley Golf course that is home to the 10th longest golf hole in the world – a 747 yard par 6 – called the rattler. Not a favorite hole of mine where the best I could do was bogey.
We returned to DMAFB and I managed a few more rounds of golf- One at the Tucson National course (which was home of the Tucson Open years ago) and another round on the DMAFB course. We also took a trip to the San Xavier Mission which is just south of Tucson. One of the missions founded by Father Kino, this mission still serves the Tohono O'Odham Indian Nation.
Disney has been advertising a day at the park in return for a day of volunteer service. Sandi and I decided to accept the invitation and gave a day to help the Girl Scouts distribute 351,000 cases of cookies. Our plans are to get to Disneyland sometime in the next month. We will probably forgo the hi-speed roller coaster rides and opt for more sedate attractions but we are looking to take a Segway tour of the park.
We will leave DM today for Phoenix for some routine annual maintenance on the RV.