Onwards to Tucson

On Monday morning, we continued south and east, getting on US-60 east for a while (Carl said, "Tell Jimmy that we're on US 60 and we'll be there soon!" -- it's just a couple thousand miles away!)

Around Phoenix, and then we were on our way toward Tucson. The Garmin said that I-10 was closed ahead... I figured it was just the construction in Tucson that diverts traffic onto the frontage road, but Carl did some additional checking on Google Maps, and we saw an overhead sign that indicated that there was a major accident ahead with "Heavy Delays". Google Maps recommended that we exit and use the frontage road (in this area, it is just a small two-way, two-lane road along the east (north?) side of the interstate). We got off where Google recommended, and soon got to the area where the traffic was backed up on the interstate -- because law enforcement was directing all traffic to exit the interstate and proceed to the frontage road. Thankfully, we were already on the frontage road, so we missed that part of the backup. A few miles further, we came to the backup at the accident site -- we couldn't see what the accident was comprised of, but Carl said he saw a semi-truck heading the wrong way. Another backup was on the freeway at that point with maybe one lane getting through. We eventually hit our own backup when we got to the point on the frontage road where we were re-joining the interstate -- we had to go through an intersection with other traffic that was, no doubt, wondering why in the world all this traffic was on the frontage road! At any rate, we made it through, and probably more expeditiously than if we had stayed on the interstate and gotten caught in one of the two backups.

We made it to Tucson, and to our campground at the Pima County Fairgrounds. I had booked a site for us a few days ago -- I had been surprised that it indicated that there was only one site available. I couldn't imagine why the campground would be so full -- I checked to see if any events were scheduled, and they were, but they were ending Sunday so there shouldn't be any demand on the campground for Monday night. Oh well, they had one site for us and that's all we needed. 

When Carl went in to check us in, the campground attendant said, "Something went wrong with the system, you weren't supposed to be able to make a reservation for this night!" There was one other RV in the campground (who also "snuck in" to the system somehow). It turns out that Tiffin has a rally at this campground starting on Friday, and they have all of the space booked! Oh well, we only needed the site for one night and we'd be leaving early in the morning for service.

Carl was excited to be in Tucson as his all-time favorite restaurant, Sweet Tomatoes, which closed all of its locations during the pandemic, has opened under new management one of their locations, the one in Tucson. We had hoped that it would be open in March when we came through, but they did not open until April. Nothing to do but to head there as soon as we got checked in and set up!

Sweet Tomatoes!

Huge salad bar

They seem to have all of Carl's favorites, including "Joan's Broccoli Madness"!

And soups -- Carl got Corn Chowder, New England Clam Chowder, Creamy Mushroom, and a bowl of mac and cheese, in addition to his salad!

We thoroughly enjoyed our long awaited trip to Sweet Tomatoes!

On the way back to the campground,

... the road we were on took us past the Davis Monthan Air Force Base and boneyard...

... planes and planes and planes... retired military aircraft...

... as well as retired commercial planes.

When we got back to the campground,

... it was about sunset. You may be able to see that Gracie is the only rig in the campground!

Pretty sky beyond her

We're in for service on Tuesday, hoping that Freedom RV will be able to easily diagnose the problems that we're having and be able to fix them quickly too!