October 24, 2008

Friday 24~~~I have to write a funny story about the camp ground we stayed in yesterday. When we got home from our trip to Mexico, the park owners were driving their golf cart through the parking lot and about 6 cats were following them on the run. I noticed that there were more cats coming up behind so I grabbed the camera and followed the cats. By the time I got across the lot to where they were all running, there was 17 cats with more coming, eating cat food on pieces of card board. The owners have a large plastic can full of cat food and they drive over there to feed them at night. I talked to one of the residents who is staying full time in the park for a few months and I asked her why they didn't neuter or fix the cats, rather than feed so many. (pictures) She told me that they have over 50 cats and they feed them in 3 different locations, all of them are Ferrel cats and are so wild you can't get near them. One cat got in one of the campers storage compartment with her 3 babies who barely had their eyes open. They found her and had to have the owner remove her. We laughed at how much trouble we think Pepsi (our rag doll cat) is, then think of 50 more of him. Yipes that would be a nightmare!! Today we drove to Tuscon, Arizona, We saw a sign on the freeway that said "Shakespeare Ghost Town" ahead 4 miles. We thought it might be interesting to see, so we pulled off and followed this dirt road for about 4 miles. Some people say you can't take big campers to off the road to see things!! Wrong!!! We pull our rig almost any place we want to go, sometimes we wonder why we did when we have to turn around to get out. Kent does such a good job and Sharon is good at walking behind to tell him how far to go and when to turn. We left the camper at the top of the hill and we walked down to the town. It was an old mining town in its day and the guide was just leaving when we got there, they do group tours only, but he told us the story of the town which was quite interesting and we were on our way to our next stop which was the"Saguaro National Park". The saguaro has been described as the monarch of the Sonoran Desert as the supreme symbol of the` American Southwest and as a plant with a personality. The saguaro cactus growth is extremely slow, after 15 years the saguaro may be barely a foot tall. At about 30 years saguaros begin to flower and produce fruit. By 50 years it can be as tall as 7 feet. After 75 years it may sprout its first branch or "arms". By 100 years the saguaro may have reached 25 feet. Saguaros that live 150 years or more attain the grandest sizes, towering as high as 50 feet and weighing 8 tons, sometimes more. The video we watched was well done with the beauty of the desert. Kent was really tired when we arrived at our campsite around 5PM. I fixed him a meat loaf dinner with some of the great beef from the Cattleman's Restaurant. After dinner we made a large batch of Carmel corn in the microwave. Yum Yum!!!! Tomorrow we are headed to Phoenix. We are still picking up the stickers from the park we were in a few days ago, it really wakes you up in the morning when you step on one in one of the carpets.