~Thursday, December 3, 2020~
Day 172
Last night, until midday today was by far our windiest day so far since we started this trip back in June. I retracted the awnings around midnight (Jeff was already in bed), and it’s a good thing we did or I don’t think we’d have awnings to speak of today. Hopefully everyone in the park did the same.
Just found out Gavin Newsom (Governor of California) is mandating “Stay-at-Home” orders until the vaccine arrives, which they’re saying should be early 2021. Evidently, ICU’s are at near capacity, and the number of cases continues to hit all-time highs. We’re forever grateful to the men and women who put their lives on the line during this historic pandemic. Jeff and I are actually very fortunate that with our travels, we naturally are staying isolated, with the exception of needed shopping, hiking on trails and checking out an occasional restaurant. But it really is being kept to a minimum without much effort. We’ve decided to still live our lives, using common sense and being aware of our surroundings, but not let IT run us, or overwhelm our thoughts.
We were able to check out Saguaro National Park with its sea of Saguaro’s, native to their desert environment.
We took the Loop Drive that takes you through the scenic desert landscape with a few hiking trails that you can take off of that. We found the Signal Hill Trail to the top of a bluff where we saw numerous petroglyphs by the ancient Hohokam people, depicting animals and the sun.
We would have gone further on the trail, but the truck alarm kept going off (we’re thinking it was from Sadie being in the car hitting something-who knows?) Ugh! We wish she could take the trail with us, but dogs are not allowed on trails in national parks.
I still had a few more Christmas decorations to buy and since we know that shopping is not Jeff’s favorite thing to do, I dropped him off and headed out on a quest to find the perfect mini Christmas tree and a few more holiday knicknacks. I wasn’t sure if we’d have to settle for a “Charlie Brown” type tree, when low and behold at the grocery store, I found the perfect live Christmas tree. Though it didn’t have that amazing tree smell, it definitely was FRESH! It even came with its own little stand/water container. Now to find the perfect small tree skirt. Mmm….maybe a festive kitchen towel will do the trick? And I hit the bull’s eye at Michaels and Hobby Lobby for the remainder of the holiday trimmings.
Now to have a place to store all of the holiday knick knacks, including our 2-½ foot tree to handle the travels. Thankfully, Jeff already had a spare tub in the back of the truck that I promptly claimed and labeled “Holiday”.