Day 1 and 2 of the Rose Parade trip

The prequel to "Our Grand Adventure" begins!

The trip to Tucson was long and tiring.  On the way, there was snow all the way through New Mexico until we left Deming, where it finally was gone.

The mountains south of Sante Fe

Gas Buddy sucks!  (Not) We tried using it in Albequerque to find the cheapest gas station and ended up driving around for 20 minutes trying to find station after station.  Turns out, you have to know North from South on my phone display to make sense of the directions!  Who woulda guessed?  (My bad.)  The app really is very handy.

Very tired when we arrived in Tucson around 6:20 Wednesday evening.  Got to welcome Lillie's new dog, Agnes (Aggie).  She's a two and a half year old Whippet and Lillie has nicknamed her "Velcro" because she's practically attached herself to Lillie's leg!  Very adorable and loveable.  And, of course, Maya and Schatzi were happy to see us.

Aggie, with Schatzi in the background

The girls in their jammies







Thursday we had to take the girls to their babysitter's houses in Tucson. While there, we picked up a Sonoran hot dog at El Guero Canelo, which means the fair one, referring to the owner who is a fair haired, light skinned Mexican.  The restaurant (and the hot dogs) were recommended by Anthony Bourdain from the Travel Channel as being the best.  In case you don't know what a Sonoran hot dog is, it's a hot dog wrapped in bacon and dressed with pinto beans, tomatoes, a jalapeno, mayonaise and mustard tucked into an oversized, slightly sweetish roll.  The condiment bar has roasted jalapenos and

green onions and several salsas.  Fab- u - lous!!!

With our tummies full and time left in the day, we headed back toward Green Valley and stopped at the Asarco mine for a tour.  It is the largest open-pit copper mine in the country, producing about 2/3 of all the copper in the U.S.  We got to see the entire process, from the gathering of thework in the open-pit through the milling and, of course, the gift shop!  It was very interesting, not to mention smelly, to see how almost all of the work is automated.   The only employees we saw were driving the monster trucks that were transporting the raw ore to the mill.  Interestingly, they use cattle during the reclamation process to fertilize the tailings before replanting.  Good tour and nice to learn something new.

The smallest truck used in the mining operation. 

Then back to Lillie's, packing and going to bed early, as we leave for LA early tomorrow morning.

That's it for my first post.  Hopefully, I'll get better at taking pictures as I go along.  Enjoy!