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We’ve been in Arizona since Friday, but internet connections were tough to come by. Therefore, no posts to document the 70-80 degree weather, sunshine, and good times. Today we returned to California and have a connection in our motel near Joshua Tree National Park so I’ll try to get caught up.

Saturday we drove down to Tucson to spend the afternoon with the Wilke-Wills family. We simply sat on the patio and chatted. There was news to catch up on since we hadn’t seen them since December. What better place to do it than in sunny Arizona?

Sunday we attended a wine and art festival in Carefree, Arizona. It’s all in the name! We saw some interesting art and chatted with several of the artists. This was part of the Thunderbird Artists traveling festival. We didn’t sample the Arizona wines due to the cost and the fact that we had just arrived from the central CA coast where the wines are great.

Monday we visited Biosphere 2 outside of Tucson. This futuristic greenhouse was home to an experiment in living in an isolated, “self-supporting” environment back in the early 90’s. After the experiments the management of this site changed hands until the University of Arizona took it over as a research facility. The tour was interesting and informative. It’s about science and you don’t see much of the rain forest, desert, or other environments. If you want that my suggestion is the Mitchell Park Conservatory in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Today we left Pat’s, crossed the Mojave Desert, slipped up the mountains into Joshua Tree National Park and spent the afternoon exploring. One adventure was a 6 mile one-way drive on a dirt road in the eastern part of the park. We have always done this with our four wheel drive, but we’re traveling in the Nissan Sentra so it was a bit risky. However, the Nissan performed well under adverse conditions. The wind blew hard all day, blinding us in sandstorms on I-10. It caught up with us late in the afternoon in the Park and now as I sit in our room the window is pulsing with the gusts. We hope it calms down enough for a hike to Hidden Canyon tomorrow. It also is significantly cooler here. Tomorrow’s high is to be in the 50’s. It’s back to wool and fleece!

I hope to post some photos tomorrow. Jean has been taking all the pics. My camera has hardly been out of its case on this trip.

Paul