Catalina State Park near Tucson

When we arrived here at Catalina State Park, Steve was slightly embarrassed to learn that his reservation started the next day.  Oops!!  Good thing we made this mistake at this time of year and not in peak season!  Fortunately, our reserved site was open, so we ended up staying here for 6 nights, instead of 5.  We had big plans here, sorta.  We were planning to visit the Sonora Desert Museum and spend two days at Saguaro National Park.  We didn’t really do our research well though, so the two days with the best weather, we took it easy & missed our best chances to do those outdoorsy things.  That’s okay though.  Our site here, site 42, was a pretty awesome site for the kids to just be kids.  They played & played in the dirt, building all sorts of houses, some underground (love to see them take the things they’ve learned & use it in play).  They had so much fun!  Steve went for a bike ride, the littles took ginormous naps, and I read for fun! 

The park has beautiful trails into the desert foothills

Desert paradise

We went on the Canyon Loop Trail as a family, and the kids had a blast playing in the creek.  The weather was perfect, and we enjoyed it. 

Steve also took the kids to a wildlife exhibition where they saw gila monsters and various snakes.  Of course they got to touch and hold many of them, too! 

We all loved seeing the Gila Monster and getting to touch it

We met up with an old friend of Steve’s, Erik Rosseland over dinner. He came back and checked out our rig and won Genna’s heart by playing Barbie’s with her!   

I have known Erik since we were teens in PA/NJ

Genna found Erik to be lots of fun

We woke the next day to wind and showers.   So we had a jammy day and accomplished little but enjoyed our time to just be. Jake is starting to take a few more steps, but he is so incredibly efficient at crawling that he is not quite ready to fully commit to walking; I’m thinking that’s a blessing. J