Sandy's Foot Will be Headed to Houston

At LazyDays KOA, Tucson, Arizona...

I thought I would give you an update on Sandy's foot problem. We saw her podiatrist, who gave us the report on her x-ray. As suspected, there are bone spurs and a bunion that are the sources of her pain and swelling.

This is going to require surgery, which we will have done in Houston. Before we leave Tucson, however, we are waiting on some custom orthotics for her shoes, and she has received injections that, along with the boot, will hopefully give her some relief for the walking she will have to do until we can get back to Texas. We have had good results from the world-class surgeons available to us there in Houston, so we will be leaving earlier than we intended and miss a number of things we wanted to see here in Arizona and people we wanted to visit on our way back. We'll just have to make another trip to catch up on these. Lucky us! 

While we're waiting on the orthotic inserts, we're trying to do some sightseeing by car, wherein Sandy rides in the back seat with her bum foot stretched out across it to reduce the pain. The trip back to Houston in Phannie will afford her a similar level of comfort, hopefully, as her cockpit seat has an electric-powered footrest that will keep her legs elevated.

In the meantime, we still have to eat, so we rolled the dice on another restaurant, still smarting from the debacle with Doug and Michelle. This time, we went to El Charro, the oldest Mexican restaurant in Tucson, dating back to 1922:

We figured it would be good, judging by the line outside, and we were right!  (Sorry, Doug and Michelle; if only you had had another day or two here.) This would go into onto our favorites list based on the tres leches cake alone, but everything else, including the service, was A-plus:

I have a terrible weakness for tres leches cake, and the piece in the photo above was just sinfully good. For some reason, I've neglected to tell my doctors about this blog, so I should be safe from their harassment, unless somebody tells on me. Besides, Sandy and I shared this piece--sort of.

On another clear day, desperate to do as much sightseeing as we could, I got Sandy all positioned in Mae's back seat, and we took a drive up toward Mount Lemmon, a 10,000-foot peak that overlooks Tucson. (If you look back in the previous post at the photo of Tucson, Mt. Lemmon is in the background.) It was a beautiful drive, although we didn't go beyond the 8,000-foot level before turning back. It was nearing sunset, and I really didn't want to negotiate all the curves in the dark. I was able to get some nice photos, however. Maybe next time, we'll go all the way to the top. 

The Mt. Lemmon highway is a good one, with plenty of railings on the outside edge.
This is a view overlooking Tucson from about the 3,000-ft. level.

Driving farther up the mountain, I was fascinated by the hoodoos (rocks left stacked in strange configurations as softer earth eroded 
around them). They reminded me slightly of those in Bryce Canyon National Park, except some of these seemed to have remarkably human-like features:

I loved this one; it looks like a guy actually speaking among a group of people around him, all of whom are looking toward Tucson! Could he be a tour guide?

Here's another one where the members of the group appear to be looking in different directions. The one with the beret appears to be looking at the moon that has just risen in the background.

Here's a nice view from about the 6,000-foot level, looking eastward toward New Mexico. This is overlooking the San Pedro Valley; the nearest line of mountains is about 50 miles away. 

The most distant mountains--the blue peaks barely visible on the right and left of the photo--includes Mt. Graham, which is over 10,000 feet and not far from the New Mexico border.

The next photo was taken just at sunset at about the 2,000-foot level and, although it doesn't show adequately in the photo, this cactus, which looks like a prickly pear, had beautifully variegated pads, some of which were purple, orange, yellow and green. It's hard to believe how much beauty can be found in the desert:

I turned the camera around and, in a few minutes, the sun slipped below the horizon, leaving this breathtaking painting across the darkening sky:

There is no scarcity of beautiful sunsets in Arizona; we will miss these, for sure. 

I'm glad that we were able to spend most of the winter in the great Southwest, and what a great trip it has been! Our having to leave early will just give us an excuse to come back and see the things we missed. 

I hope you enjoyed today's little ride up the mountain. If we take any more day trips like this before we leave for Texas, we'll post about them for sure. 

Thank you, Lord, for this wonderful life; 

please forgive me if I fail to appreciate it each day as I should.

We don't stop playing because we get old; we get old because we stop playing. 

 ---George Bernard Shaw

"I get up every morning, and I just don't let the old man in." ---Clint Eastwood