Tucson Wrap-up

Here we are making our way through Phoenix(driving through big cities is an exercise in frustration!), on our way to Quartzite, AZ. We're on our way to meet up with the 2005 Full-timers graduating class members. We will be 'boondooking' in the AZ desert with other folks who started full-timing this past year (I think around 40 rigs are registered to attend), should be interesting!

Our overall impression of Tucson was, great place to visit, wouldn't want to live there. The biggest problem, its too dry! We didn't think it was possible to be too dry (low humidity is a requirement of our place to live search). Tucson has not had rain in something like 100 days! While the weather was nearly perfect for January, mid 70's during the day, 40's at night. Things are dry, dead and brown.

Tucson did meet a couple of our 'place to live' search critera.

First, it has to have a good biking community, both road and mountain biking. In previous post we talked about our group road ride with the seniors at Voyager RV park. The roads are good, many with bike lanes, lots of group rides. The mountain bike trail system here has something for everyone. You can go into the mountain for some hard core climbing and wicked downhill runs (which we didn't do) and some flat land, fun trails. One in particular, the Fantasy Island trail system, while considered a begginer trail, had some fun expert loops to keep the experienced riders coming back for more!

Next we are looking for close proximity (within a days drive) to some sort of wine country. Which, typically means mountains, temperate weather, some sort of seasonal weather changes (mild, changes) Now Tucson is none of these things, but we did find wine. Not many people are aware of the Tucson wine country, but it is slowly emerging. A great example of Tucson wines is Callaghan Vineyards. (ww.callaghanvineyards.com) they make some outstanding Syrahs and Zinfindels!

Time to move on, look for more from Quartzite, coming soon!

Rich