Day 4 - Still Tucson

We wanted to stay in Tucson for at least one full day to experience the city. So after a lazy morning we finally got ourselves together to drive into downtown and explore. Our first stop was the Tucson visitor center. Since Marianne volunteer's for the California Welcome Center in Oceanside, she said these are great places to get the information you need about an area.

When we arrived at the visitor center we were the only people there so we received the full attention of the lady behind the counter. We were interested in Old Tucson, the colorful houses, points of interest and a place to eat lunch. Within minutes of our arrival the center was crowded with a dozen tourists and our individual attention was severely diminished.

But for lunch she recommended a Tucson favorite staple, El Charro which was not too far away. And since it was close to lunch time, we made a beeline for the place. El Charro claims to be the oldest Mexican restaurant in America in continuous operation by the same family, since the 1922. Their original chef, Tia Monica Flin, is well-known as “The Inventor of The Chimichanga.” While frying her now famous El Charro ground beef tacos, she accidentally dropped a burro into the frying pan and when the oil splashed up she was about to lash out a common Spanish cuss word starting with “Ch” but because she was among her young nieces and nephews, changed it to “Chimichanga”, the equivalent of “thingamajig.” 

Yet with all that great history, I was sadly disappointed. Their margarita was excellent, but the carne asada burrito I ordered was so salty I had to send it back, and a few minutes later I received a different style carne asada burrito but it was also too salty. I could only muster a few bites before I gave up on it too. I had to have their flaun dessert just to clear my palate.

With a bad taste in my mouth, I decided we'd finally get the weight of just our 2012 Ford F-250 alone. We found a truck scale a few miles east of Tucson off I-10 were our weight was officially recorded as 8660 pounds. Armed with that information, and the weights I recorded of the truck and trailer together in Oceanside, I was able to compute all the necessary weights an RVer should know.

We came back to the trailer to avoid the 108° afternoon sun.

A couple of hours before sunset we headed out to the University of Arizona to an area called Sam Hughes were we would find some interesting adobe homes that our daughter, Nikki, discovered a year ago when she passed through here after moving from Charlotte to Newport Beach. The neighborhood is indeed very interesting.

But now we were headed to the 9000 foot Mt. Lemmon just north of Tucson where it would be 30° cooler and offer us phenomenal sunset vistas and view of the lighted city below. We weren't disappointed.

The pictures below show the colorful downtown area, Marianne with two dogs combined into one very long dog, and the views from Mt. Lemmon.

The news is still inundated with the heat wave coming toward Tucson from the West. They've increase the predicted high temperature this weekend to 113°. Maybe we can stay ahead of it as were headed toward Texas.

Miles traveled: 85.

High temperature: 108°

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