We got to Pima County Fairgrounds in Tucson on Saturday. The 5 day event starts on Sunday, the 8th. This is the 55th Escapade put on by the Escapees RV club. and the third we have attended. This is the first in Arizona and has turned out to be a popular one with over 900 rvs of all types. There are workshops and presentations geared toward RVs, both full and part timers, crafts, line dancing, entertainment. When we got there, we saw our friends, Larry and Orene, who we first met at the Escapees Mexican Connection trip several years ago. We joined them at their rig for a happy hour along with Margaret and Frank, who we also know from the Mexican trips. Sunday night was the opening ceremony. Kay Peterson, who started the Escapees Club along with her husband who passed away a few years ago, was the main speaker that night. She is 88 and is a great speaker with a wonderful sense of humor. I wish her speech was longer as she is very interesting. Her children are involved with the running of the club and now her grandchildren are as well. The club started with average age of members in their 40's and now around 75 percent are over 65. So the grandchildren have started a loose group within the club called the XCapers who should appeal to younger people. A good idea to keep this wonderful club going. They had entertainment every night but we just went one night to see Brent Web, the Master Mind, a Mentalist type of magician. It was fun and would love to know how he does his tricks. We attended various presentations, including some travel ones by Nick Russell, who publishes the Gypsy Journal, and also writes some mystery books that take place in Arizona. We have read the first six of the Big Lake series, and waiting on his seventh, which he is now working on. We also spent some money while here. . They have an area where rv products are sold, including satellite TV. As our rooftop satellite hasn't been working for awhile and we have been using our outside one which is a hassle to get set up. We decided to go for a while new unit instead of having it fixed as we have real old Direct TV receivers which once they go kaput we would need to buy a new unit anyway as the new receivers don't work with our old system. Tuesday it was installed and we are very happy with the results. We can now record programs again as we couldn't use our tivo dvr in the motorhome. We also now have HD. Our TV is HD ready but our system wasn't. I also finally upgraded my flip phone to a smart phone,a Galaxy Prime Core. The Verizon connection at the Fairgrounds wasn't working very good, especially with so many people there and we later ended up having to go to one of the Verizon stores in Tucson to get the phone fully set up. The reps at the Fairgrounds never set up the upgrade or some other changes we made and we ended up having to pay some upgrade and other charges the reps hadn't told us about. Working with Verizon is so fustrating as you get different answers depending on who you talk to. Anyway we had a good time. We did leave on Thursday before the closing ceremony as it is one of the Spring Break weeks coming up and we wanted to make sure we could get into the first come first serve campground, Gilbert Ray Campground which is in the Tucson area.
We were able to get into the lovely campground and spent 7 days, which is the maximum time you can stay, enjoying the scenery. We had gotten over our colds but Joe developed a knee problem while at the Fairgrounds and was limping around most of the time we were there and at Gilbert Ray and so no long walks or sight seeing. It was a nice place to just kick back and enjoy the nice weather with just a small amount of rain.
We did have a snake sighting. I was sitting outside reading when a guy came over and said there was a large snake heading our way. I thought it might be a time to go inside which I did. I tried to get a picture of it from our window but it was hard as the men capturing it were in the way. You can barely see a little part of it in the second picture below. You can see part of the hook and below it is part of the snake.
The snake is just to the left of the box with the orange looking top.
More beautiful Arizona sunsets. Next up in our adventures is a return trip to Roosevelt Lake, a few hours trip north of Tucson. Stay tuned.
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