After Bullhead City we did our usual stop for a couple of weeks in the Phoenix area to tend to business (mostly doctors, but other stuff, too) and visit friends. We then headed to Tucson for our annual stint to work for the U.S. Forest Service at Sabino Canyon. The intent was to work there into April before heading out on another summer's adventure.
Like I said, that was the intent. However, when in the Phoenix and Tucson areas we usually check out the condo/townhouse situation to see if there are any lock-and-leave options that we could see ourselves living in for the winter. We usually look at a few each year but never find one that comes close to meeting our criteria. This time, we looked at one that caught our attention in Gold Canyon. We looked at it a second time the day before we drove to Tucson. Long story short, after deliberating we made an offer, came to an agreement and closed on the place on December 14. We will be spending the next couple of months moving in and getting it setup exactly the way we want it.
We will continue to travel but now we have a home base for the winters where we can come back to our stuff. We hope that family and friends will come and visit and warm up.
Now it is time for my annual travel wrap up. This was an unusually big year for travel. The Frozen Four in Tampa pointed us to the southeast. With that pivot point, a plan formulated to see a bunch of things as described throughout this blog. The emphasis, as usual, was on historic sites, national parks and state capitols. We drove the truck over 17,000 miles, towed the fifth wheel 8,500 miles, visited 36 national park locations (National monuments, historic sites, parks, etc.), toured 13 state capitols, visited a lot of friends and family and made it safely back to Arizona without any major problems. This was an extremely fulfilling year!
Here is the route map with 2016 in green.
Coming attractions - the plan for 2017 will be to travel north through California, Nevada, Oregon and into Washington. This will take a couple months. We'll spend a few months in Washington and then start moving south through Oregon, Idaho, and Utah before getting back "home" (been a while since we said that).
