Saturday 13^th December was to be a key date in this stage in the trip. Dad and Carol were finally due to arrive to become our ‘hosts’ in their house that we had been squatting in for 4 weeks. Also John was due to fly back to rejoin the boys and I so we could set off on part 2 of our trip. We would all 8 of us have 2 nights and 1 day together before Mum and Graham flew back to the UK, leaving us to have a few more days and nights with Dad and Carol.

So Saturday morning we were up bright and early so we could ‘move out’ and Thelma the worlds’ most glamorous cleaner could come in and erase all traces of our stay. Only joking – that would have been impossible. We were still taking up ½ of the garage with our trailer and countless U-Haul boxes full of the van’s contents. Oh and of course the children’s bedroom was overflowing with Lego, skateboard stuff, clothes etc. We did at least persuade them to clear enough so the floor was visible once again. (It hasn’t now been seen again since!!).

John and I had found a really lovely hotel called the Posten House Inn just round the corner in Tubac and he and I were planning to spend the 6 nights there that we would be in Tubac on this last stage leaving the kids in the house with Dad and Carol. Mum and Graham were staying at the same hotel for their last 2 nights. Mary and Don who own and run the hotel were absolutely lovely. We had met them when we found the hotel back in November before John had gone back to the UK. So when the kids, Mum and Graham and I arrived to check in the Saturday morning they greeted us like long lost friends!

Dad and Carol’s flight was due in at 4.30pm and John’s at 6pm. So we thought that it would be fun to hang out at the airport as ‘Official Greeters’ for a couple of hours. On the way up I19 we stopped at the San Xavier Mission for a quick visit. Nicknamed the White Dove it is a stunning white building built in the late 1700’s the mission serves as a pilgrim destination for Catholics locally and worldwide. It looks stunning set against the usual bright blue sky but it was horribly overcast and no one was really in a ‘visiting’ frame of mind. So we lit a candle for our loved ones and headed out towards the airport.

      

At which stage my phone came alive with messages from John frantic that he was stuck on his airplane, which had landed at LA and was being kept waiting before they could disembark. He had 1 hour to make his connecting flight to Tucson. So followed a nerve-wracking hour as we made our way to Tucson Airport to meet Dad and Carol’s flight while waiting to hear if John had made his connection. We were just at the arrival gate when he called to say he had missed it!!! Turns out the plane he was on was a huge airbus 380 and they couldn’t find a ‘gate’ big enough to park it on. So he had sat on it for 45 mins and then despite the ‘fast track’ pass he was given to get through customs and then the 10-minute sprint to his gate, he missed his flight.

The kids and I were gutted!! There went our plans for a family reunion at the arrivals gate. The next flight was not for another 3 hours and wouldn’t arrive in Tucson till 10pm. Dad and Carol’s flight arrived and they were very surprised to see us there. Well us and a choir singing Christmas carol’s – which we hadn’t arranged but made it all feel a bit like the end of the film Love Actually.

I tried to collect the hire car so that I would be able to drive back to the airport later and collect John. Wrong! Despite the fact we have now hired probably 5 cars from Enterprise in the last 6 months they wouldn’t let me hire one without my passport – grrrrrrr!!

So we all 6 headed back to Tubac and got the kids settled in to the house with Dad and Carol and Mum and Graham and I had supper in one of the many lovely restaurants in Tubac. It felt very strange leaving the kids. First time in 6 nearly 7 months that I will have spent a night away from the children. But they were very excited to be with Pappy and Oma.

Lovely Graham drove me back to the airport with my passport and I hired the car and sat and waited for John’s flight – now delayed an extra hour!! Eventually at 11pm John arrived – so he had been travelling for just the 24 hours!! So lovely to have him back with us!!

We had one day all together and finally the sun came out again!! Dad and Carol brought the kids to the hotel for breakfast and from the way they threw themselves into John’s arms they were pretty pleased to see him too!! We headed to Pena Blanca Lake just south of Tubac. A beautiful reservoir set at the back of the Santa Rita Mountains just near the Mexican border, which we hiked around. Great fun making our way through desert cactus and oak and mesquite thickets. Climbing and scrambling over the rocks. We were all scratched to shreds by the time we completed the loop. William was delighted to finally have Pappy there to join him bird spotting. They were pretty much ½ mile behind the rest of us most of the time!

  

That night we had a lovely ‘last supper’ at an Italian restaurant in town. It had been great to have this time all together in Tubac. But Monday morning came around and we had to say good-bye to Mum and Graham. Those goodbyes just don’t get any easier so the less said about that the better probably.

John and Will and Dad headed off to finally collect Frankie from the garage. Charlie, Carol and I had a quiet day at the house. Don and Mary (the lovely hotel owners) had offered us the use of their hotel grounds to park Frankie for the week until we set off once again. This was such a fantastic offer for us as the alternative was that we used the storage facilities at an RV park 15 miles north of Tubac, along I19 and through the border control which would have made loading up again significantly more arduous.

Tuesday morning William and I went with Dad and Carol over the border in Nogales into Mexico to the dentist. At about the 10^th of the cost of US dentists, we were going to visit the hygienist and get our nashers polished. Sounds awful but we thought Charlie’s teeth would be fine as he still has mostly baby teeth and John had seen our dentist in Haslemere when he was home. So the 2 of them snuggled up in the hotel while we drove south to the border.

  

It is truly incredible how different a world it is just over those few feet into Mexico. Firstly you can walk into Mexico with absolutely no apparent immigration or border control. You go through the turnstiles and then there you are, unmistakably in Mexico. Rows of pharmacies and crowded little shops line the broken sidewalks. Then just one row back is an entire street of Dentists!

Having had our toothy pegs all polished we joined the long long line of people queuing to pass into the USA. Funny how different it was going in that direction. Being a ‘Senior Citizen’ Dad got to queue jump. Although if looks could kill we would have all dropped dead as we pushed our way past all the Mexicans in line to get to work via the ever strict American Border Officers.

As I showed our passports I asked whether it might be possible to get another 6 months. When John had come back in by plane he was stamped for another 6 months so as it stood the kids and I were due to leave the USA in March and he had till June. The nice man said that the men ‘upstairs’ in Permits might do it. Sadly as we didn’t have Charlie with us there seemed little point attempting it now but we decided it would be worth coming back to see what they could do later in the week.

One of the things John was really keen to do in Tucson was to visit the Pima Air and Space Museum and the ‘Bone Yard”. So we headed there on Tuesday afternoon. No one except John and Dad seemed particularly excited about a series of hangars full of planes and an airfield with a load more planes in it. But actually it was great!

So at AMARG (Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group) they have $33 billion worth of planes, about 4000 airplanes over 2600 acres. It started just after WW11 when they had an abundance of Bombers and cargo aircrafts and needed somewhere to put them. Apparently the hard ground here in Arizona was ideal, as no additional roads were needed to be built to store them all. More arrived in 1967 after Vietnam.  So now it is used to house all these planes no longer in service and they are used for ‘parts’ for aircraft all over world. Last year they sold $400 million worth of parts! Nice business!!

                

The best exhibit we saw was this Invisible Stealth Bomber – actually took the kids a while to work it out!!

The museum there (the Space part) was interesting. They had a Moon Rock, which apparently is insured for $10 million and was donated by a Tucson born Astronaut. We loved this crazy display of Aerogel, an incredible substance that can withstand 4000 x its own weight and looks brilliant!!

A really great day out finished off by Dad and Carol taking us to Wisdoms for supper that night so we got to sample the margaritas with them!!

Wednesday & Thursday John and I ‘ditched’ the kids and spent one day sorting Christmas and one day sorting Frankie!! Having DONE   Christmas, which included all the wrapping we then had to find spaces in and around the van to hide said presents. Thankfully with Frankie being in the car park of the hotel it was easy to reload and sort our stuff that had expanded somewhat especially with Christmas presents hidden stuffed into every corner.

 

We also took advantage of having Grandparents in residence to get a night out on our own. This was the first time in nearly 7 months we had gone out WITHOUT THE KIDS. Very exciting!!

  

William spent the 2 days joining Pappy on his Christmas Bird Counts. Sadly the weather had turned so they got very wet but it didn’t seem to dampen their enthusiasm any. Oh apart from veering off the wet roads into a ditch and needing to be towed out by the nice Border Patrol chaps!!  One photo of just one of the many many birds they spotted over their time together – a Cedar Waxwing (am I right William?!?).

Charlie spent the 2 days with Carol and they played Chess and Sequence and watched endless Christmas movies. I think they both enjoyed having a bit of time away from each other (Will and Charlie that is not Dad and Carol) although at the end of each day they were snuggled up on the sofa so close it makes me think they maybe missed each other too!!

On Thursday afternoon we drove over to Patagonia (again!!) to meet up with Dad and Will and the rest of the Bird Count Crew at Wagon Wheel, the Cowboy Bar and Grill. It was so lovely to see William so involved and excited and obviously very much a valued part of the team. He is scaring us with how grown up and confidant he seems!

 

Friday morning the kids and I went down to the border with Mexico again to see if we could extend our visas. The official didn’t want to do it, as ours hadn’t even expired as yet. But I persuaded him we wouldn’t be going near a border town again and that I didn’t know how else to do it etc. etc.! What a huge relief for us. For 1/2 hr. + $18 it was totally worth it. Not least of all because as well as the hassle of applying online we also saved the online application fee for visa extensions of $280.

 

That afternoon Charlie had a date with Pappy to make up for all the birding he and Will had been doing. So they headed out for Pizza and the cinema. That night we cooked everyone a curry and Dad took John and I out for a couple of drinks before dinner. We pulled up outside Tubac Jack’s only to discover Dad had come out in his sheepskin women’s slippers!! Truly I have had enough of hanging out with OAP’s now!! We had a really fun evening then got ready to hit the road once again!!

 

We had ended up spending 7 nights in total in the hotel. Don and Mary felt like part of our funny family unit by the time we left. We felt so at home there that I had to remind John that we had to actually PAY them! So Saturday morning we finally moved the last things out of the house, namely the kids, and set off.

 

The kids and I had been in Tubac for over 5 weeks (except for the 6 nights we spent in the Cruise America RV) and were well ready to move on. We had had a lovely time hanging out with the Grandparents and enjoyed being in a house but at last we were on our way again!!