Tucson, Tombstone, Quartzsite and Casa Grande.

We arrived in Tucson, Arizona with Judy and Eric on January 12^th, 2012 and set up camp at Desert Trails RV Park. The park is an oasis of desert living, with mesquite trees, miniature gardens, Cacti, hidden sidewalks, hilltop views, oleander driveways and many varieties of palm trees. 

In the center of the RV Par is the "Desert Oasis” where the thick fauna and trees attract Horned Owls, Cardinals, Crested Hawks and Finches among over 50 varieties of birds seen in the Park during the winter months.

It is also very close to one of our destinations, Old Tucson Studios.   Old Tucson Studios is an old movie studio and theme park, adjacent to the Tucson Mountains close to the western portion of Saguaro National Park.  Built in 1939 for the movie Arizona, it has been used for the filming of several movies and television westerns.  Old Tucson served as an ideal location for shooting scenes for TV series like NBC's  Little House on the Prairie.  

This is the casket prop used in Clint Eastwood's movie Unforgiven.

Three Amigos was a popular comedy shot there in the 80s, utilizing the church set.  It was also used in Tombstone with Kurt Russell.

From 1989 to 1992 the show The Young Riders filmed here and at the Mescal sister site. The main street appears prominently in 1990s westerns such as Kurt Russell’s Tombstone.  A partial mirror set exists at Mescal, AZ.  

This building was featured in Gene Hackman and Russell Crowe’s The Quick and the Dead, which filmed the entire town of Redemption scenes there. 

John Wayne shot several movies here including “Rio Bravo” and McClintock.  Clint Eastwood filmed several of his western here as well.  It was really something to wander amongst the sets and props of some of our favorite old westerns and TV shows of years ago.

 Another major attraction of the area is the City of Tombstone.  Tombstone….that name means many things to many people. It creates images of gunfights and dusty streets, whiskey, Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday and tons of old western movie scenes.  But what many folks don't realize is that Tombstone is a real town with real inhabitants who have lived here throughout its history and still do today. 

That is part of the reason Tombstone has been called “The town to tough to die”.  We visited the OK Corral as well as Boot Hill and had a lot of fun prowling around the variety of shops inhabiting the main street.

 We then headed north to Quartzsite where we joined a FMCA Rally put on by the Beaver Ambassador Club and had a great time. Quartzsite is a popular RV camping area for winter visitors, and tourism is the major contributor to Quartzsite's economy.  Nine major gem, mineral, and 15 general swap meet shows are very popular tourist attractions, attracting about 1.5 million people annually, mostly in January and February.  We had a great time with big bonfires at night with lots of music as well as cookouts and a variety of games and tours around the desert.  In all we had 95 RVs attend the Rally.

We took Judy and Eric into Phoenix to continue their vacation with Steve and Cheryl and we headed back to Quartzsite where we had new shocks installed in our coach.

From Quartzsite we headed down to Casa Grande where we will spend the next two months before heading home in late March.  Casa Grande was founded in 1879 during the Arizona mining boom, specifically due to the presence of the Southern Pacific Railroad.  We were looking so forward to coming here because of the activities that were offered and the proximity of the town to south Arizona where we could take some side trips.   At the Palm Creek Golf and RV Resort we found shuffleboard, billiards, horseshoes, water volleyball, softball, tennis and a putting green as well as water exercise, weight room, Yoga and Pilates.   

We took part in a lot of crafts classes include pottery, sewing and quilting but just couldn’t find time for a lot of the other activities including oil and watercolor painting, woodshop and carving, lapidary, silversmith and stained glass.  We attended the monthly craft fairs featuring vendors from around the state an of course, enjoyed line dancing and pickleball.  The resort offered us a great 18 hole executive golf course as well.   This is our street and our house…..

Our first month ended with some of the busiest times ever.  We biked around the resort several times, played pickleball three times a week, line danced three times a week, attended 10 pottery classes while working on a variety of projects.   Susan's pottery was featured in the Resort's Pottery Fair.

Here are some of our other pottery projects.

We are looking forward to continuing all of our activities for the next month including a visit from granddaughter Haley in mid March and the Good Sam Rally in Phoenix.