Sacramento to Tucson and Back

We haven’t done a blog post in about eight months so this one will bring us up to date. We began the 2022 spring in Sacramento and enjoyed walks in the city and in the Effie Yeaw Nature Center. In late April we traveled to Tucson to house sit and pet sit for friends. On the way we spent a day in Joshua Tree National Park, near Palm Springs. We had enjoyed hiking in the park many years ago when we lived in Southern California so this visit brought back fond memories. Joshua Tree National Park has many spectacular rock formations as well as the namesake Joshua tree, the world’s largest Yucca. The day of our visit was chilly and windy, not uncommon for the high desert. Click on the first photo in each block to view larger images in a slideshow.

At the end of April we arrived in Dove Mountain, just outside Tucson, to house sit and pet sit for Jim and Pam, the parents of Andy’s fiancee, Heather. We sat for them last year so we already knew their dog, Rox, and their cat, Trill. But now they also have a new kitten!

Tasha is a Russian Blue and she is full of kitten energy. She has learned a lot from her dog brother Rox, and runs to greet us at the door with him. Her best dog feature, though, is playing fetch with water bottle caps. She can do this for a long time and finds caps all over the house to continue the game. It was a pleasure to enjoy their pets for a month.

We sometimes enjoy touring real estate open houses just to see the types of home design in the area. We visited the Sam Hughes neighborhood, an area of historic early 20th century homes just east of the University of Arizona near downtown Tucson. One house had several murals painted by Ted Degrazia, a famous Southwest artist.

We knew we would be spending a lot of time in Arizona this year so we purchased a membership to the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum so we could go as often as we wanted. The museum is part museum, part botanical garden, and part zoo.  It is arguably the best attraction in the Tucson area. It is also adjacent to Saguaro National Park, which we also enjoyed in conjunction with our visits to the museum.

At the end of May we traveled back to Sacramento. In early June Carrie had hip surgery at UC Davis Hospital to repair a hip replacement that she had 22 years ago, now wearing out. Because it was a revision they did not have to cut any bones, just resurface the ball and socket. Hence, her recovery was quick, uneventful, and complete. We spent most of the summer in Sacramento, enjoying daily walks, usually in the morning before it got too hot. We were also able to visit Andy and Heather several times in Oakland, a fairly easy drive from Sacramento.

Late August saw us back in Tucson to house and pet sit once again while Jim and Pam’s younger daughter was married in Indiana. The weather was still hot but it was also the end of monsoon season so we got to enjoy several spectacular thunderstorms. Tuscon receives much of its rain through these summer thunderstorms, and the desert comes alive with seasonal greenery and fuzzy green grasses covering the hills. We had a break from house sitting in the middle of September so we went up to Flagstaff, Arizona, for a few days to explore and to enjoy the cooler weather in the mountains. Flagstaff has several nearby National Monuments and we visited Walnut Canyon (home to ancient cave dwellings) and Sunset Crater Volcano.

At the end of September we again traveled back to California, first with a brief stop in the Bay Area. We are spending much of the fall in Placerville, in the Sierra Nevada foothills about 50 miles east of Sacramento. Placerville is an old and historic gold rush town in a very scenic area, where the oak trees give way to evergreens. We enjoy walking on the bikeway/walkway that meanders through the nearby hills. Our house is very near Apple Hill, which is dotted with farms where you can pick your own apples. We are fortunate that this fall has been wildfire and smoke free.

Gold was discovered in 1848 in Coloma, only about ten miles from Placerville. We took a short day trip to the Marshall Gold Discovery State Historic Park, where you can see the actual spot of the first discovery as well as preserved historic buildings and mining tools from the gold rush era. On a longer day trip we went over to Lake Tahoe a couple of days after the first snowfall, once the roads were cleared. We enjoyed seeing the spectacular mountain scenery in the snow. Lake Tahoe is certainly a national treasure.