In early February, I was planning on leaving Tucson, but my landlord, John, asked me to stay to be his ride across town to the eye clinic where he’d get cataract surgery. They won’t do it if they don’t see a driver for after. His surgery was on Feb. 28th. He offered to let me stay free. Well, hmm, had to do some plan changing and whatnot but I agreed. And than, not a week after I’d planned on leaving, I woke up one morning and discovered an anomaly in my left eye. Looked it up on Google and self diagnosed it as a torn retina. Since that is a serious condition, I jumped in the car and drove down to the VA hospital ER. They looked at it, and made an appointment for surgery for a few days later. What a coincidence that I had eye trouble just like John.
The day arrives, John takes me to surgery, I never get into the op room, they send me home and have me come back the next day. After the surgery, I discover that my vision is now totally fuzzy. I’m told that is a typical side effect of laser surgery used to tack weld the retina back in place. So, okay than. And with that, I was stuck here in Tucson. Instead of leaving on March 6th (it’s April 10th as I’m writing this), I’m here getting the follow up care including cataract removal. The cataract surgery and the new lens installation happened 2 days ago. And there looks to be a complication. I may need another surgery because it looks like the retina didn’t get fully attached the last time by the laser.
I’m getting so antsy, I got the wanderlust but I’m stuck here! And to make things even worse, the neighbor behind my RV decided he didn’t like looking at 2 RVs here on John’s property so he called in and reported it, even though John told him that I was only still here because of emergency health reasons. The county sent a nice letter to John about it and said they’d be out to check up on the possible rule violations on this property with an RV being a living space for someone and perhaps being too close to a utility building and that will happen in 5 days. I might need even more laser surgery (though I’m told it wouldn’t damage the new plastic lens they put in) and I’m getting nervous because I don’t want a big tow truck pull up and try to attach to my RV (unlikely). More likely there’ll be a fine or an order to move the RV within a certain period. I don’t know what kind of enforcement the county can do either? Can they put a notice on my RV’s door that says I have to vacate in 24 hours or something? I have no idea, neither does John. There’s a lot of assuming going on. I have scouted around and found a suitable RV park several miles west of here but I’m a bit nervous about driving my RV out of this space with only one working eye, I’d rather have my eye working better and somewhat healed before I try driving my RV out of this tight space with all the big rocks everywhere and the difficult driveway with cactus on either side ready to scratch my paint if I get too close.
So that’s what’s going on here in Tucson on this nice sunny day with 86F temps. If I’d had my druthers, I’d have been back on the road by Feb. 6th. But life got in the way.
Okay, with that bit of news out of the way, I’ll try to focus (eye joke) on some of the stuff John and I have done around town. Much of the time I’ll be checking things out by myself but occasionally, John and I will head for a brew pub in the region we’ve not been to yet. So far, since November 2021 we’ve checked out 18 of the 30 brew pubs in the region. And I’ve found my favorite regional beer, Dragoon IPA. Yum!
On one of our trips, took these because it’s kind of interesting how much open space there is around the downtown area.
And here we are at the Hideout. Crappy beer though. 
Few days later, I took a solo trip a few miles from John’s to the Mission Garden. This is an ancient growing area where both natives and the Spanish used when they settled here. Has the water and the soil that promote gardens.
Many of these plants are from original cuttings. Kinda cool.
As the name implies, this garden was very near a mission that crumbled to dust a hundred years ago. The volunteers have worked long and hard restoring the garden as much as they can using today’s scientific methods. I met and talked with several of the volunteers and they really enjoy restoring and maintaining this garden. Labor of love. Year round work of course if you’d ever had your own garden you’ll know that already.
The palapas are reproductions of how the natives originally built shade for themselves. The natives were asked to help and in many cases completed the work themselves.
This hut is a reproduction of a temporary dwelling used by natives back when they lived the nomad lifestyle, before the Spanish convinced them to settle down.
This is an ancient wall still intact. With some fairly modern antiques. A grinding wheel was highly prized item to have back in the day.
This reproduction pond and contained stream was built on the remains of an ancient irrigation system set up by the natives over the centuries.
And then here we have a temporary shelter used by the natives for centuries. This area was a stop over on the yearly migrations the Indians made so they’d stop here, rest, cultivate or harvest, replant, than move on.
 
Very interesting to trod on grounds used as a life sustaining garden for thousands of years. Interesting in that the garden consists of the very ancient plants that natives had cultivated for centuries, and then the addition of fruit trees and other plants introduced by the Spanish all here, growing and cared for.
Took over an hour to tour the garden but well worth the visit.
I only had one eye to work with when writing up this article so if you spot something like duplicate pictures, let me know in a comment. Thanks.
Thanks for reading! Come back again soon.
Jim
We’ve spent several winters at Desert Trails off of Ajo on San Juoquin. New owners in PHX are a-holes but Jessie, the manager is very nice. Rates fairly reasonable.
I’ve visited there several times as it’s near a strip mall that has several things I like, hardware store, nice cafe, laundromat, so I have toured that park. Nice. But the rates are exorbitant, IMO.
So sorry to hear of the eye troubles. My hubby had both cataract – lens replacement at about a three week interval. He can now actually see color again and driving the rig is much easier. We’ve parked our rv due to $6.00+ gas prices so taking the opportunity to tear out the kitchen in the house and have a nice place to cook. Right in the backyard.
I hope that you get better vision soon. I’ve learned to live with one good eye and one fuzzy, but that’s because I use mono vision contacts. Only one eye gets one. So I have a distance eye and a close up eye. It took about a week to get used to it. I’m profoundly nearsighted and need coke bottle bottoms. Even plastic ones weigh a pound, lol. So my solution was proposed by my optometrist and it works for me. Not that this is your situation but eventually your good eye will be dominant and your brain will ignore the other one.
I was very nearsighted in my left eye, with 20/350 at one time. 20/95 in the right. Over the years, both improved and now with the lens replaced I’m looking forward to them both being the same…if the surgeons can get my retina tacked back down. I’m told though, that it’s possible to lose most of the vision in my left if they can’t get it back in place. Not a fun situation. I’ve got my fingers crossed that the surgery is successful. I should know within a week. The surgery team brought in a specialist, an older guy, and he told me yesterday that with a couple stitches it’ll be good as new.
Great blog always enjoy your articles and have learned so much!!! Sorry about the crappy neighbor hope there day gets better – people what are you gonna do?
Thanks so much, Don. Good to hear you get something from my work here. Yeah, the neighbor. I don’t even think they are there all the time, because some nights every light in their house is off, other times their wrap around porch is well lit. Like they’re only in town certain times and it’s empty all others. I don’t know though. But still, it was a sh1ty thing to do out here in the boondocks where I’m not bothering anyone…except him.
Hi, Hope you get your eye troubles sorted out and be on the road again soon! Can someone, help you drive your Motorhome to the other RV park for you, if you have to move? Hope so. Good Luck and hope it all works out for you soon.
Thank you for your thoughts, Rita. Yeah, my landlord here who owns the property where I’m parked, is a friend and he has nearly the exact same RV as I do, I’m parked next to it. And he’ll drive my RV out of here for me if I have to move to the nearby RV park. So that’s covered.
I went in yesterday (Monday…follow up after the cataract surgery I had the previous Friday) and there’s a fold in my retina. It’s a possibility I could end up blind in the left eye. So I’m scheduled for another retina surgery this coming Thursday. Fingers crossed.
I hope your surgery went well, Jim. Some people always have to mind everyone else’s business and stir the trouble pot. Years ago my mother moved from her house to a home. My motorhome’s tranny gave way so I parked it in her driveway to replace the tranny. I’d talked to the neighbor 2 houses up several times. While mowing mom’s lawn or-. Well Sam walked down and told me he didn’t like my motorhome being in her drive because it blocked the street light’s light output on mom’s corner! The motorhome was parked in her driveway and not on the sidewalk or street. Nice people? Not so much. Thank you for your stories. Too bad you’re not here. The neighbor parked his friend’s 40′ motorhome and the 120v. house supply isn’t working on the Xantrax RS2000 inverter. Happy Easter!
I can’t say it went well yet, because all they did was squirt a bit of fluid in my eye ball to push the retina back in place and then there are a couple sutures I’m not sure what they do but I’m told they will dissolve on their own. But the kicker was that I’m supposed to put my head down for an hour 6X per day! What! Come on! And then I’m supposed to sleep on my belly or on either side from now on. For weeks! WTF? I haven’t slept on my belly for 60 odd years. I am a back sleeper. Now what do I do? Well, late today I came up with an idea. Fanny pack with a tennis ball inside. That MIGHT keep me from rolling onto my back. Worth a shot.
There’s an AT&T tower building on this property right next to my RV and the AT&T guy was here today as I was getting ready to go to the VA hospital for my after surgery appointment, so I had the chance to remove the kitty litter box and bag of kitty poop from in front of the building’s doorway, and talk to the AT&T guy and tell him I would have been gone by now if it weren’t for this pesky torn retina (I was wearing my after surgery protective device over my eye), and that may garner me some favor on his report. Saying something like…”Not parked too close to the building”. Some protective thing like that. Who knows. He seemed/acted like a guy who was used to being spit on or yelled at by AT&T haters. And I avoided doing that.
We’ll see what the county inspector says after this guys report. All he cares about is sewage and there is a sewage drain already installed that I use. Was plumbed in by the previous property owner. We’ll see how it goes.
UPDATE: Neither the state or city ever bothered me about moving my RV, and I left in mid-May. So I was there for 5 months and 2 weeks and they didn’t care. All they did was write John a letter about the neighbor’s complaint, probably sent someone out to see that everything was good as far as electric, water, and sewer setup, plus they contacted AT&T since I was parked within a few feet of their building (but on John’s property). And nothing came of it. So that nosy neighbor can suck it. Ha!