We had a nice hike at Sabino Canyon today.
We had a nice morning, for the most part. When Bia woke up, she remembered she had left her computer in the truck, so I went outside to get it, and the sunrise looked amazing. I stopped for a moment to enjoy it, and took some pictures. Wow. It looked so amazing I thought I had to wake Carol up so she could see it, so I did. I went in and opened my window in the bedroom, and Carol jumped out of bed and went outside to look and take some pictures. I got Bella up at the usual time, and just like that everyone here was up and going by 7:30am! That’s a new record! Bella decided to actually do her classes from her bed (bottom bunk), so Carol got her stuff to her and she got going. The girls had a short day, and they were both done before 10am. That’s another record.
Carol decided she wanted to wash the bathroom, and clean up the trailer a bit the rest of the morning. I went outside to empty the black tank, and did my normal routine. I plug the hose to the tank flush, then open the tank valve so it starts draining, and then I turn on the water to the tank flush. Because I have this new connector to the sewer hole, and the new one is not clear like my regular one, I could no see if anything was going or not, but I tried to listen to liquid flowing and didn’t hear anything, so I stopped the water, checked the pipes, checked the toilet and surprise… there was a clog and the tank was not draining. I think it’s likely due to the nicer 2ply paper we have been using, and maybe too much of it was put down and clogged the tank pipe, so nothing was coming out. Great! That was one of the issues that can happen in an RV that I dreaded happening, and knew it would happen one day… and here we are. I left the tank valve open just in case, and went to the campground store to see what they had there as options to solve this. They didn’t have a ton of options, but did have this clear connector that you put between the trailer and the hose, and it has a spot for a water hose, so you can rinse the tanks and the hose from that side. I bought that, and installed it, then connected the water and turned it on. I used it to spray the tank but the water does not reach the tank as the tube bends as it goes up as well, so I grabbed the hose and raised it higher and towards the trailer, and could see water then piling up in the clear pipe, and could tell it was going up into the tank. Then I let go the hose, and liquid came down… looked like a bit more than just water, but not a ton, so I did it again. And after the second time, lots more came down and it looked like the tank was draining… yay! hahahaha…. Well, between trips to the store, because I had to go back one more time as the first piece I bought was broken, and trying these different things and such, that simple tank drain took almost 2 hours. But, now we have something to get us out of this situation again, at least the easier ones.
The girls were just watching Youtube or what not on their devices while we were doing our things. When Carol was done with her cleaning, she got lunch ready, and packed some snacks for our outing. I finished writing a post and did some online work, and then packed the truck so we could leave. During lunch, we had another little episode with Bella. She was a bit… harsh, complaining she didn’t want to eat what she was given and was not very nice about how she went about it. Carol took offense and they argued a bit, then Bella left the table and went inside to eat just plain pasta with salt. We talked to her later about this attitude, and eventually she apologized to Carol and it was all back to normal.
Another thing I tried to do while doing online stuff was research our next adventures, and see if we had to make any reservations. We wanted to go to Kartchner Caverns, but they require reservations and they are booked out to March. So, we can’t get in and that was a bit disappointing, so I wanted to make sure the next ones we don’t run into that. I then made sure Carlsbad Caverns don’t need tickets for general caves, and emailed people there, just in case.
We slowly got our things ready to leave and left to Sabino Canyon around 2:30. It was a nice drive there as we drove towards the mountain range so the views are very nice. We got there around 3pm, and while it was quick and easy to park, we had just missed the 3pm tram. The last one for the day is at 4pm, which also means you will have to come back with it or on foot later, so we skipped that and just chose another trail that was closer.
There’s a trail that’s close to the visitor center and is easy and takes you to Sabino Dam. The trail there is very easy and the dam area is very cool. We all loved it. The girls loved getting in the water, feet only but that was plenty, touching the water fall, etc. Both said they want to be back tomorrow, and we do to, so that’s the plan already… go back in the morning and take the tram into the canyon, then walk back (I hope). We really had a nice time in the trail today.
From there, we drove towards downtown to check it out. Downtown is a very nice area, close to the mountain (Mount Lemon, I think). It has some historic buildings and is easy to drive around. Since there was nothing specific we wanted to see, we just drove around a bit, then we went to a Mexican place for dinner. Carol found this small place with great reviews. When we got there it looked like it was packed so she went down first to see if we should stay. She come back and called us in. They have an outside patio that is covered and was empty, so we went there. The place is like two old houses that are joined together by this covered patio. It’s simple, but the food was great. The patio is open so it was a bit cold, but they had a heater on for us. It got quite windy later, and a big gust came through bringing dust all over, and things were flying everywhere, hahahaha. We had a nice meal and good time there, and it was not expensive which is a plus.
From there, we went back home and everyone hit the showers. It’s not a school night so we watched some TV. The girls wanted to watch YouTube so we let them for a bit. Bia and I ended up going to bed around 11 and Carol and Bella had gone earlier.
We had a nice day checking out Sabino Canyon and the Sabino Dam.