Tuesday, February 14, 2012 (Catalina State Park, Tucson, AZ)

We woke to heavy clouds and wind this morning...the rain was predicted to start “after 11 a.m.” and it was 10 minutes after 11 when we heard the pitter-patter start on the roof.  Over the next couple of hours we watched as the temperature outside started to drop...from 50F (10C)...all the way down to 32F (0C)....and the rain turned into snow!

The approaching storm...

And the snow starts...

...and gets heavier...big, fluffy flakes...

Needless to say, we stayed inside watching The Grammys that Steve had PVR’d as well as 3 episodes of the new show Alcatraz that Dennis had downloaded for us.  While watching TV, I managed to get our blog up-to-date...I was 3 days behind.  Steve also did some research on-line for a welder in the area where we can get the bike rack fixed.  Apparently the bike rack has a lifetime limited warranty but that doesn’t do much good if you can’t find a dealer.  The “Store Locator” on the Thule website did not work.

At 2:30 the storm had passed and some blue sky and sunshine was starting to make an appearance (and the temperature had gone back up), so we decided to go out for a walk.  Steve took these pictures of the fresh snow in the surrounding mountains....

After a brisk walk around both campgrounds (A and B), I headed inside while Steve stayed out puttering around.  A few minutes later he came in to say that he thought he would ride his bike up to the office to see if any sites had become open.  We were only able to get a site here for 4 nights and really wanted to stay longer because there was no way that we would see and do everything we wanted in that short of a time.

I decided to join him but before riding up to the office, we decided to ride down to the overflow area to check it out...that would be a last resort.  We didn’t like the area and just hoped that a site would be available for us to move to on Friday...for at least a few more days.

We were in luck...sort of...we would have to spend one night in the overflow and then move to campground B.  Someone had cancelled and site B60, a pull-through site, was now open starting Saturday.  We weren’t sure how much longer we wanted to stay but we booked our stay to the maximum allowable...14 nights.  We can get a refund should we decide to leave earlier.

Feeling much better about being able to stay...even if we have to move twice...we rode back home.  It had clouded over again and was threatening more rain...and sure enough, it started just as soon as we made it home.

We spent the rest of the evening in front of the fireplace, watching TV.  The sky started to clear a bit...and produced this beautiful rainbow....

Sunset with a rainbow...cool...