Expedition Team: Dave Miller, Rosie Miller Expedition Date: October 5 & 6, 2019
Rosie & I camped at the Tucson KOA then attended Catholic Mass at the historic Mission San Xavier del Bac, an old Spanish Mission built in 1797. After mass, we ate delicious Indian burritos sold by parishioners while fighting off an annoying baby scorpion (Photo#5-#7).
We drove to Saguaro NP, where we hiked the 2 mile Mica View Trail, home to tens of thousands of saguaro cactus plus cactus flowers, desert tortoises, gila monsters and javelina (Photo#7-#11). After driving we slowly drove through the park and saw Mount Lemmon in the distance. We made it a future goal to hike to the summit. Rosie admitted this was her least favorite national park on the trip due to the lack of diversity of scenery but I felt at home with the thousands of cactus. For my birthday Rosie bought me a beautiful Saguaro NP orange bicyclist jersey and a Gene Autry Greatest Hits CD at the educational Visitors Center.
We camped at the Tucson KOA, the most fancy KOA campground ever. It has a restaurant, pickleball court, swimming pool & hot tub. Our campsite had a two level platform with chairs on the top deck and table, chairs and firepit on ground level (Photo#1-#4). Orange & other citrus trees were everywhere. If I beat this cancer for the third time we will return and winter here for a month in 2020-2021.