We woke with the first alarm and promptly finished the last couple of packing touches so that we could pull out of our lot. Still dark and not quite time for breakfast, we ran errands – bought the first gas for the RV since November, picked up a few groceries at the store, and then a last visit to Bead & Berry. After coffee and breakfast we headed south to Tucson.

The plan is to visit Saguaro Forest National Park – but it’s an overcast, rainy day today – so we’re heading into town to check out a bookstore (looking for a 2016 calendar) and generally hide out from the weather. We could both use new shoes so we look for those while in the mall (without any luck). Wraps for lunch in the parking lot… it feels like we’re back home again. 😀

Then over to a nearby Sprouts, a grocery store we’ve really come to enjoy. They have great prices on good looking produce. We’ll certainly miss them when we can’t find them around any more.

Finished shopping, we head out to the Tucson Mountain Park for a couple of nights. It’s a county park with a campground that has electric hookups. It’s not too far from the western half of Saguaro and will give us a good home base and a place to rest a bit – we’re both far more tired than we realized! It’s so quiet here! We are also surprised at how accustomed we’d become to the background noise of generators and traffic. The water pump and refrigerator fan seem so loud!

We picked up a roasted chicken, I make salsa, and Ashley mashes the last of our rutabagas from the CSA. Delicious supper!

After walking to two different coffee shops, both of which were closed, we ended up back home – researching weather. It turns out that our plans to visit New Mexico won’t quite work out due to freezing temperatures. There’s enough of a concern that our pipes might freeze and burst for us to skip New Mexico until a non-El Nino year. What a shame! But better safe than sorry in this case.

Mel and Jo (Valley View Trees owners) stopped by to pick up paperwork, office supplies, and generally wrap up the season. We enjoyed chatting with them. Jerry and the distribution crew came by and picked up all of the supplies and left-over fireworks as well.

We’ve been watching through the first two seasons of Heroes during our time in Arizona and we finished off the last episode before bed – before hitting the road. What perfect timing!

Packed up the lot after a slow morning. Boxed up fireworks, took down decorations, folded up tables, and packed everything into the storage container. A few customers trickled through during the process and we ended up making a few sales. Not quite enough to warrant staying open through the weekend, however.

What a relief to be packed up and done! We walked over to Brooklyn Boys pizza and restaurant for a celebratory supper. Pasta, what a treat!

Sales ramped up slowly for fireworks. Slow on Monday, half that on Tuesday, a nice steady trickle on Wednesday, absolute flood on Thursday, and a slow trickle on Friday. Seriously, Thursday the first customer was there moments after we opened the gate and after lunch there was a line circling the tent – and it remained that way until evening. Crazy busy day – that was the highest single sales day of all the lots. (And we ended up with the highest sales over all.)

It was certainly nice for Ashley to be able to walk to the grocery/coffee shop (we really enjoyed Bead & Berry across the street from us – delicious coffee and amazing food). Over-all, however, we liked Gilbert better. It’s a more upscale community (helpful for sales with Christmas trees, we suspect) and feels cleaner and safer. Not that we have any specific issues with Maricopa – it’s just not somewhere that we want to stay for months on end.

Ashley walked within a couple feet of this lil guy

One highlight on New Year’s Eve was the lady who sold us some home-made tamales. Wow, they were delicious! We got a dozen of them, so they stretched out across a few different meals – and when we received them they were still hot so we had a quick, delicious supper!

Twice now we’ve had ladies come by (and, since they didn’t speak English, had their daughters) sell us Tamales. Once while selling Christmas trees. They were darn good, but these were even better!

Up and about a touch early – off to explore the coffee shop/eatery “Bead & Berry” for breakfast. It’s just across the street and everything on the menu looks delicious – they’ve been closed all weekend for the holiday, however, and this is our first chance to test them out. We thoroughly enjoy coffee and our food.

Back to Mashley’s Fireworks Lot. We bring out the combination packages (the most expensive items, left locked in storage until the last minute in case someone hops the fence and grabs things during the night) and wait for the fire deputy to arrive and ok our setup so that we can legally be open for business. Mel comes by to be here for the inspection as the city’s been giving him a bit of a hard time about this lot.

We have a couple of customers come by before the inspection and make a few dollars. Once the inspection is over and we’re ready to go (it was pretty straight-forward and painless for us) we’re open for business. A few people have stopped by thus far.

Ashley went back over to Bead & Berry to grab some lunch. We have left-overs from last night’s tacos for supper but no idea what to make otherwise so this gives us a chance to try out their lunch offerings.

Didn’t do much yesterday. Able to sleep in during the morning. Priced fireworks and finalized the displays. The distribution crew came and picked up Christmas Tree equipment.

It’s amazing how the weather can change in the desert – from miserably cold to miserably hot to miserably windy.

Sharing our parking lot is a Big O Tires – they looked at the RV and determined that the squeaking is basically dust buildup on the back brakes – it won’t hurt anything, just sounds annoying. So we aren’t going to pay for new brakes until they’re needed.

Made tortillas from scratch and had some chicken tacos. Fresh tortillas really do make a huge difference!

Slept in until we woke up, which was not as late as we expected. Breakfast and Ashley opened her present, a light for her bicycle so she can ride before/after the sun.

We take apart the plumbing, siphon/run the generators out of gas, and put away the last couple of items on the lot before heading out.

Since it’s Christmas, not a lot is open. We stop and fill up propane, both the built-in and removable tanks. Then find a laundro-mat that is open and finally catch up on laundry. Not as nice as our “regular” place, but it gets the job done. While everything’s in the dryer we eat lunch out in the parking lot. Good to feel like we’re back on the move again!

Off to StarBucks for drinks and a FaceTime call with Ashley’s family. Nice to see everyone!

Then our schedule kicks in and we head down to Maricopa for our Fireworks lot. We’re meeting Mel there so that he can close out the books on the Christmas trees and start us on Fireworks. He isn’t there when we arrive so we chat with Candy and David (who ran the tree lot). He shows me a couple of quirks about the setup and the girls compare notes on the employees. Overall we agree that the training could be a lot more in-depth.

Mel arrives, sees them off, and we inventory the Fireworks in the shipping container. This involves removing them from the pallets, moving them from the right side to the left as we go, marking each item off on the list. A bit tedious and cramped quarters but we get the job done.

Finished with the inventory, Mel heads off, scheduled to return at 9 tomorrow morning to help us get set up.

We maneuver the RV in place and get set up for the night.