Links to Tucson Facebook Pictures

Alrighty, folks. Woke up nice and refreshed and took a shower with the Solar Shower once more. The park volunteers enjoyed it; the grandparents who volunteer to help maintain the park live in an RV right by the visitor center and they have 9 grandchildren!  One of their grandchildren lives in Florida and taught in Savannah – she wrote 2 books as a Chemistry teacher.  It’s a small world!

We continued touring Mt Lemmon after we left the campsite.

Just trying to see where to world ends

And those are Saquero cactuseses

Enjoying a serving (that could feed 4 people) of apply cobbler with vanilla ice cream. The place was called The Cookie Cabin in the city of Summerhaven. The city had some beautiful mountain homes and small shops to support the community! The ladies at the general store were super friendly and helpful with suggestions. It was a very scenic drive to the top of the mountain where there was an observatory tower(s).

CHECK IT!

We went on a short <2 mi hike near the top of the mountain. Still hot as ever.

We went to to get a late lunch at Mr. K’s BBQ. I had sliced BBQ beef with potato salad and collards and Ryan enjoyed a pulled park BBQ sandwich with Texas beans. Yummmayy! Now we’re back down in Tucson just taking a breather in McDonald’s (charging electronics, updating you guys, and enjoying the AC).

After McDonald’s, we met up with Josh and his girlfriend, Jonea, at their apartment – we went to Chili’s for dinner, and then came back to his apartment to watch the Blackhawks game. It was funny, because he had DVR’ed the game prior to going to dinner, but the game was playing on the TV at dinner. He sat somewhere with his back to the TV, and we tried to drown out the noise of the game with our conversation. When we started eating, though, we all became quiet and I could tell that he was trying pretty hard to not inadvertently listen to the game.

We went back to his apartment and met his dogs. Mom will appreciate that they have three dogs – Eden, Charlie, and Mikey. Eden is a little Chihuahua / something mix (the tiny white one), Charlie is a wiener-dog, and Mikey is a pit-bull. They are all rambunctious and full of energy! It really made me miss our dogs back home. When we sat down to watch the game, I checked Facebook and knew what the outcome would be – Blackhawks would win, 4-3 in the 3rd overtime. I knew he’d be happy about that!

We talked about our various family members around the world, and he told me a little bit about the small town that he’s from, as well as how the town was like in the 1930’s.

It was really neat to hear about the rise (and somewhat fall) of the town – from the time of bootlegging days where it served as a remote hideout for the Chicago gangsters, to the more modern era of being a mining town, to the close of the mines and the strong reliance on tourism. I wish Snellville had more unique history like that. I just feel like it is a standard suburb, with more focused on being a convenient location for going to/from jobs in the Atlanta area.

It was refreshing to know that there ARE still places like that in this country – places that retain their history and character, even though so many other places are always changing and evolving into something unrecognizable.