Hacienda RV Resort | Stahmann's Pecan Farm
Tucson, Arizona: I must begin today's
diary with some comments about our campground last night - the
Hacienda RV Resort!
I did mention that it was just a wonderful campground, but I forgot to
mention that they offer free continental breakfast, card keys to enter the
club house, and the nicest dog run I have ever seen. When we checked-in,
Snickers was given a "Welcome Package" which included the rules he must obey
while residing in the campground (with a smaller note for cats), a poop-bag
and a doggie treat. How nice was that? Not as nice as their dog run. The dog
run is completely enclosed and runs the entire width of the southern edge of
the campground - nearly 200 feet long. One wall is stone, the other is
chain-link fencing. The run has grass, trees and gravel - and lots of
garbage cans and even pooper-scoopers. I could walk Snickers to the dog run
and he could actually run, off his leash, and sniff and piddle-away to his
floppy-eared content. The entire campground was immaculate. After a camper
checks-out, a crew descends on the vacant site, cleaning away and actually
dragging a rake over the campsite with a tractor to make it look as if no
one has EVER stayed in the site before. Each site has a privacy screen -
ours was covered with climbing roses - and they were in bloom in November!
There were still a few things we wanted to see in Las Cruces, so we were up
early and headed downtown to the Farmer's Market, which is supposed to be
one of the top-ten Farmer's Markets in America. Oh, it was just awful. It
was like a craft fair. No produce whatsoever. Guess we had missed the
growing season? We spent about 15 minutes looking at the booths, then drove
south on Highway 28 to
Stahmann's Pecan Farm.
Pecan orchard
It was just a beautiful drive, on a bright, sunny day, out
to the farm. On the way we passed a busy cotton gin! Cotton everywhere! We
also passed a huge chili farm, with bushes loaded with bright red peppers
ready for harvesting. Then we began driving through pecan orchards and we
didn't stop until we had driven 6 miles to the farm store. Stahmann's is the
largest family-owned pecan farm in the world. They have 180,000 trees.
That's a lot of nuts. Stahmann's sell bags of jumbo pecan halves -
absolutely perfect halves - and each nut is about 1 1/2 inches long! Unreal!
The store is quite exceptional in its quality of gifts and pecan assortment.
(NOTE: Warning! After visiting Stahmann's only twice - I will not bake
with another pecan. I order online.) Go to Stahmann's!!!
Pecans!
After this adventure, we went back to Goldie and since it
was only 11 a.m., we decided to check-out - and we left Las Cruces and The
Most Perfect RV Park Ever - (did I mention the fabulous water pressure?) and
drove on I-10 to Tucson, Arizona - 275 miles! We crossed back over the
Continental Divide, into another state, and into another time zone. We
didn't arrive here until about 5 p.m. and are once again parked at a huge,
fancy, parking-lot-type campground,
Beaudry's RV
Resort. There may be better campgrounds in Tucson. There are
more-conveniently-located campgrounds in Tucson. There are cheaper
campgrounds in Tucson. So, why, you wonder, are we here? This campground is
next-door to one of the largest RV dealers in the world! No, we are not
looking to replace Goldie. (Yet.) We just haven't shopped for RVs for over 3
years and we want to see what is new and improved. This campground is also
next to a Camping World, and has instant-on phone connections at every site,
2 pools and 2 club houses. On Saturday, there is a huge bicycle race in town
- El Tour de Tucson - and
Lance Armstrong is supposed to be riding.
We stayed in tonight and had a quiet dinner, so I could watch David West
(Xavier) v. Stanford on the satellite.
RV Park:
Beaudry's RV
Resort