Old Tucson Day 1

(Daniel here) Monday (Febuary 13th) we got to Tucson and the Saguaro National Monument. You should have seen all the saguaros, with some being an inch high to most being taller than a house, their arms reaching in all directions. They literally covered the landscape. And we camped right in the middle of them! If you plan to do this part of the trip, we have to recommend the Gilbert Ray State Park Campground.

After setting up the camper, we went to Old Tucson Studios, one of the places John Wayne filmed most of his many motion pictures.

When we got to the front desk they told us we were entitled to a two-day ticket since it was already late in the afternoon. Besides, we'd need more time get a full tour of the park. We came across an old train that once ran on coal (I got a sample from the pile for my rock collection) and we got several pictures of it.

After that we went and jumped on a the tour train (under which I had previously flattened a penny) that took us all around the studios.

After getting off, we went back to the place we had got on and retrieved my penny. It was very warped, but wasn't flattened like a real train would do. Then we watched a cool reenactment of a bank robbery from the movie Deathwish, complete with shotgun and revolver shots. I was really cool.

It got late, though, so we had to leave to get back to the camper. But we had one more treat before we called it a day. See, one of our friends, Miss Patte, has been asking us to take a picture for her of a moose on this trip. While we were buying some salt water taffy, we discovered our prize -- albeit a little-less lively than we'd hoped.

We had a great time and I could hardly wait to go back the next day.