March 14th

Despite the increasing concern about the COVID-19 virus making its way through the United States, we proceeded with our plans to fly to Tucson, Arizona to visit with Jerry & Gail. When we made these plans to go on Drew and Jayden’s spring break, Samantha had classes scheduled at the University of Tampa, which meant that she was unable to join us on the trip. Of course, with Sam’s campus being closed and classes moved online, she could have gone, but the timing just wasn’t right for that to happen.

With all that said, Tara, Drew, Jay, and I got up well before the crack of dawn to head to the airport for our 7:15am flight. We made it to the airport without issue and checked our bag (nailing the 50lb limit exactly!) before heading through TSA. We boarded the plane for the first of our two flights for the day, this one to Houston. The flight was pretty much full, but we were relieved to have all of our seats in a single row and not end up spread throughout the plane!

We landed in Houston on time and made our way to our next gate. We didn’t have a ton of time between flights, so we found a spot to relax and charge our phones while we waited to board. Before long we were getting on the plane and locating our seats (again, all together in a row). All was normal as we taxied out towards the runway, only to stop and wait for what seemed like forever. The pilot finally came on the PA and said that there was a mechanical issue, that we were going to return to a gate, and that the mechanics were going to try to fix it. We all sat on the plane waiting for them to tell us we were good to go, but instead they told us we would have to disembark while United Airlines found us a new plane to fly on to Tucson.

By this point we were all getting pretty hungry, so we grabbed some lunch from Wendy’s and found a spot to eat where we could all charge our phones. When the time finally came to board the new plane for the flight to Tucson, we were full and ready to go. Thankfully this time we got off the ground without incident and had an uneventful flight the rest of the way.

We landed in Tucson later than originally planned, but we were able to keep Jerry & Gail up to date with our revised schedule, so they weren’t waiting at the airport for us the whole time. After we grabbed our bag, we headed outside to meet with Gail, who was waiting to pick us up.

On our way to their house we stopped at a nearby In-N-Out, at Drew’s request, to try a restaurant that we don’t have back home. Although the food was acceptable, there really wasn’t anything special that stood out about it either. At least we got a chance to try it!

In-N-Out
	A look at the inside of the In-N-Out burger where we picked up dinner.

We finally arrived and Jerry & Gail’s house at the Friendly Village of the Catalinas mobile home park. We got a tour of their house and were shown our bedrooms for the week, where we all dropped our bags to settle in.

We took a walk around their park next, to learn where things are and to visit with Tara’s Uncle Glen, who also lives in the park. We then made our way to the clubhouse, where we ran into one of Tara’s neighbor when she was little. After a brief visit we returned back to Jerry & Gail’s house, where we spent the remainder of our evening catching up before we finally had to call it a night (the time zone changes were catching up to us all, as was my lack of sleep due to working until 11:00pm the night before).

Flight to Arizona

Drew managed to get some shut-eye on the plane.

A look out at some of the mountains of Arizona from the plane as we neared Tucson.

In-N-Out

A look at the inside of the In-N-Out burger where we picked up dinner.

Friendly Village of the Catalinas

A look at the Santa Catalina Mountains from the Friendly Village of the Catalinas mobile home park.

A closer view of the Catalina Mountains.

A saguaro cactus that reminded me of Mickey Mouse waiving.

Some palm trees.

A closer view of the Mickey cactus.

A rather interesting cactus spotted in the park.

A mammillaria cactus.

A barrel cactus.

And a Gila woodpecker on the side of a saguaro cactus...