Tucson Still…. the end of Winter approaches 🙂

We can hardly believe we are soon to be out of AZ and back on the road, pursuing our on-going adventure!  Yes, we were in LazyDays KOA during November and December, then we tried out a new park, Rincon Country West RV Resort, for January, February and part of March.

Rincon West (there is a Rincon East, too, but we haven’t seen it yet)  is a lovely park with lots (and we do mean LOTS) of excellent activities, as well as a wonderful staff and great amenities – huge pools, at least 8 Pickle Ball courts, several dog exercise areas, two hot tubs, many club areas for various activities such as sewing and/or knitting, woodshop, ceramics, card playing, and a very large library! We have found both the “Homies” (Park Model Dwellers) and the “Wanderers” (like us) to be very welcoming and friendly. There are other types of clubs too that you can participate in: hiking, biking, dancing, acting, and so forth, as well as groups for taking trips to events and venues outside the park!   We believe it is a spot worth exploring.

 We have admit, though, that our first month here at Rincon has been mostly occupied with getting insurance coverages changed, sorting out how and where to get our “bent” axle fixed (Gary has the patience of Job), and preparation for tax time (Pat handles this one, Thank You, God)! It is amazing how such things can fill your time! However, we have managed to meet a number of folks, both Homies and Wanderers, and attended some events, including a special Corgi gathering in one of the exercise areas, with our Lili, and also a Pot Luck Dinner with other folks from Oregon (each state or region if there aren’t enough folks to justify one for each state in the region) has a Pot Luck every so often, apparently. So, before we realized it, it was time to get some pictures posted and update this blog.

The pictures we have attached are NOT ALL we have taken, of course, but we wanted to be sure you saw  some of the sweet happenings and caught you up on things happening with our travel adventure as well as our family adventures back home.

• We have had our kids, Son Michael and our Debbie, our terrific daughter-in-law, come to their home in Green Valley, only 25 minutes from Rincon. We had such fun with them, and seeing their faces meant more to us than they can ever imagine! The weather was so crazy we didn’t get a chance to play golf with Michael, but we reserve the right to threaten him with that again!
• We had a “Domino Game Fest” with our extended family, Debbie’s mom Donna and her guy Art. Yes, score was kept, but… we will not go into that!!!!! We had fun meal-times, and enjoyed just hanging with them!
• We have done some fun excursions into and around the Tucson, AZ area, you will see some of those pictures. We have biked, power walked, and driven …. It is all fun.
• We have experienced several “firsts” while in the winter months here.
  • Lili now attended her first, out of Oregon, Corgi gathering, and it was huge, huge fun. She loved meeting new pals, especially Tucker who could be her brother, they look so much alike! There were about 7 or 8 Corgis in all, and they had a blast! She also met Rusty, a King Cavalier, and they got along beautifully!  Each time they meet she begins with a “bark-out” hello, then they just both smile.  We swear they do.
  • Speaking of Rusty, his mom and dad are Sandy and Dan. We loved meeting them and finding that we share much in common, including being from Oregon.  They are on their first full-time adventure having sold their place in Bend, Oregon.  As the four of us talked, we discovered that both couples had plans to be in Nova Scotia later in the year, so we are hoping to meet up sometime next Fall in Canada, perhaps on Prince Edward Island.  Its amazing how quickly the time passes when you are with good friends! We also are hoping we can talk our dearest buddies Gayla and Jim, into joining us on that adventure! We’ll see!!  That would be just the BEST, and well, I am practicing my best sales pitch for them.  We can’t say enough about our friendship with Gayla, Jim and of course Gus!  (WISH ME WELL.)

• Lili now has her own limo, that we call the Lili Limo, of course! She has what we found out is a fairly common genetic condition in many dog breeds. It is called Degenerative Myelopathy. It affects the spinal column and makes it difficult for her to walk long distances, hence the “Limo”. She loves it. We take her on long walks as well as bike rides!
• Wyatt, Dylan and Kelly’s baby boy, had his first birthday in February. The pictures of him and his birthday gave us BIG SMILES probably extended our lives based on the way they made our hearts feel!
• Josie got her first visit from the Tooth Fairy! Yes, she has officially lost her first tooth as you will see in the pictures below!
• You will also see some really cute snapshots of our other Great Grands, Miss Lenna, River and Ezra. We are truly blessed!

The lives of our family back in Oregon are busy and moving along, as we know very well.  For sure, the hardest part of living out our adventure is not being around to witness all the fantastic changes as the family grows and develops and not being there to be a part of the physical and moral support system for our family! But between calls home, face-timing, and writing notes out to all, we are staying connected.  That is so important to us and we will continue to do all we can to stay connected as we continue our adventure!

We are off next to New Mexico, Texas, Arkansas, Kansas, and …… who knows! Those are just what we have planned out until June.  We are very excited.

We are thrilled to be meeting up with the buddies we met in New Mexico:  Gayla and  Jim, and of course, Gus, their dog!  We’ve stayed connected and now we will be sharing some camping time along the way –  we can hardly wait to see and be with them…..especially Gus! 😊 We call one another, face-time, and truly, they are our buddies for life!

We leave Rincon West on March 23^rd.  We may be back next year or we may be on an adventure to another place. We’ve decided not to reserve our space here yet, even at the risk of not being able to get one next year. It will be as it will be.  We want to get back to updating our blog once a month like we were doing before while on the road.  Time has just been speeding on.  We love it still, oh yes we do!

The Three Burkes