Friday March23-Saturday March 24, 2018

Happy Hour, Happy Carol

We sleep in later than the last few days. It is amazing how blocking out the natural daylight changes your sleep patterns. We have a nice breakfast at the hotel. Our goal for today is to go to the RV show at the Tucson Convention Center. We have not been to one since we left Colorado and are considering getting a small trailer. How small is one of the things we hope to decide. Either way, it will be a far cry from the 35 to 40-foot ones we were originally leaning towards before we retired. Several factors play into this but the most important is that we found that most State, Forest, and even National Parks do not accommodate the larger units. 28 feet seems to be the max at most places. On a trailer that would include 3 feet of hitch. We have decided to look at 25 feet total and under with the hitch, if we can find something we like in that size. We arrive at the show a little after it opens. We have decided to focus first on the smaller units. This turns out not to be a problem as there are not many in the size we want. We do look at different things that we think are important to us. One is a bed that has room to get out on each side verse having to crawl over the other person. Another is fridge size. A small slide would be nice also as it opens up the trailer. Overall, the show is a disappointment. It is run by the same company that organized the show in Denver we went to for many years. That is where the commonality ends. The show in Denver was much larger with all different types of fifth wheels, trailers, tent campers, pickup campers, etc. in addition to the large units. This show is smaller and definitely focused on larger units and toy haulers. We are done in less than 2 hours.

We decide to go look at a few RV dealers in town. Our first stop is Camping World. They are giving away free hot dogs, soda and chips. Guess that is Lunch.  A nice salesman shows us around some of the units in the size we want. They do not have a large selection and are pretty much limited to Jayco and Coleman. Coleman is cheaper made in our opinion and we are not overly impressed with Jayco either. They do not sell the Lance brand here. Lance is the brand of trailer that Bruce and Kim own and showed us at the national monument campground. I look up Lance dealers on line and find one that is not too far away so we plug it into the GPS and drive there. We are shown quite a few in different sizes and we like one that is 19.5 feet of living space. Add 3 feet for the hitch and it is under our 25-foot threshold. There are a few smaller ones but these do not have a queen bed that you can get out of on either side. The Lance brand is definitely a step up in price, but you can see the difference in quality. This one will definitely make our short list.

Sonoran Dogs

After several hours at the two dealers, we decide to go find a Mexican happy hour. We end up at Guadalajara Grill and get some margaritas and a queso fundido with chorizo appetizer. It is very good and we just relax and talk about our RV day. When we leave, we drive to El Guero Canelo, a place that I had read about that sells Sonoran Hot Dogs. These are local to the area. The Sonoran Hot Dog is a grilled bacon wrapped hot dog covered with beans, grilled onion, fresh onion, tomato, mayo, mustard, and jalapeno sauce. It is served in a steamed Mexican roll. We each get our own to try and are glad we did. It is delicious. That makes a hot dog for lunch and a hot dog for dinner. Only the best for my wife. We return to our hotel and stay in for the rest of the evening.

On Saturday morning, we wake up and go down to eat breakfast. We had planned on hiking in Sabino canyon today but neither of us is very motivated to do so. We decide to do something we do not do very often. That is sit and relax. We end up spending the day watching Madam Secretary which I have on an external hard drive. We always bring shows and movies when we travel. Coupled with an HDMI cable we can watch whatever we want on the hotel TVs. We do decide to find another Happy Hour as we are decidedly happy.

Bacon Bloody Mary

Our choice for today is the Horseshoe Grill which turns out to be about 30 minutes away. We sit at the bar and Carol orders a margarita while we peruse the many happy hour choices for food. I decide that my first food choice will be a Bloody Mary. Hey, it had bacon and olives! We order a burnt ends pork belly appetizer and a mac and cheese smothered with pulled pork. Everything is tasty and the Bloody Mary is very good.

A Bloody Closeup

  Carol does not like the margarita and I encourage her to tell the bar tender. She does, and he gladly switches it out to an IPA beer for her and she is much happier. A man sits next to Carol and she of course starts a conversation. He is former Air Force and has been in Tucson for about a year. We hit it off and the conversation lends itself to many subjects. Eventually, he has to go but we exchange information and invite him to stay with us in St George. He drives though there when he visits his parents in Montana. We each get another beer and finish our food choices with Loaded Nachos covered with Brisket and an order of Mesquite Smoked Chicken Wings. They both are amazing. Perhaps some of the best nachos I have ever had. They set us back 5 dollars each. We finish everything which fills us up and pay our tab. Thirty minutes later, we are back chilling at the hotel. Tomorrow we hit the road again.