Saguaro National Park East

Thursday, 20 December

Up early for 8:30 tee time at Rolling Hills Golf Course, selected because it was close, less expensive than other Tucson courses, and we could get on.  We left the FamCamp at sunrise while it was till chilly.  Forecast was for light winds, sunny, and high temperatures in the 70s.


We were among the first to arrive at the golf course, which worked out well as we could pick a parking place for Sprinty that was not sticking out too much.  We spent some time warming up on the range, literally and figuratively- as the sun was creeping up and we started to feel less chilly.

Rolling Hills Golf Course is a fairly short course - 4,146 yards from the back tees, par 67 (a normal 18-hole course is a par 72, and we usually play 5,000 to 5,800 yards long).  Kris decided to play from the back tees.

We both hit pretty good drives on the first hole, with Kris making a par to be up one stoke.  After two holes, the two-some in front of us asked us to join them as we were following four-so we, so it was going to be slow.  John and Dennis were nice to play with.  It took Darrell three holes to finally even up the score.  Kris had a couple of tough holes, so Darrell was up by three strokes at the turn.  We played back and forth on the back nine, both of us struggling with the undulating greens.  One green was so crowned that balls just rolled off unless you could putt them perfectly to the crown.  A pretty course, with challenging greens.  And more challenging than the par and length suggested.

After golf, we visited a nearby Starbucks.  As we had finished golf in 3 hours, we had some more day than we expected, so we visited Saguaro National Park East, which was only a few minutes from the golf course.  We stopped at the Visitor Center, watched the video, and got some info.  We then took Sprinty on the 8-mile Cactus Forest Drive.  Unlike its counterpart in the west park, the Cactus Forest Drive is paved.




We then headed north to check into our campsite at Catalina State Park for the night.  After checking in, we went to visit Deep Creek Lake friends, Mike and Maribeth, who live in north Tucson.  We got to see their new home, walk to Tucson National Golf Course located a few blocks away, and enjoyed fresh hamburgers off the grill.

Photo of 18th hole at Tucson National Golf Course


Photo of 17th hole at Tucson National Golf Course


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Rockies Caravan - Part 5 - Dinosaurs and Flaming Gorge - STR-2021…

Image
Sunday, 28 August After several clear days without smoke/haze, the smoke is back. As we headed north from Moab at 7am, the sun looked like a red ball in the sky - very different from the sunrise we watched two days ago. Today's itinerary was repositioning to Vernal, UT, about 230 miles north. The recommended route was to remain in Utah and take US 191. Our Wagonmaster said not to take the route through Colorado as the roads were worse. A quick check of the recommended route saw that it went through Helper, UT, home of the Carbon Country Club Golf Course. Conveniently located about 2 hours from Moab and 2 hours from Vernal. By leaving Moab at 7am, we arrived early at the golf course and were able to take advantage of a cancellation to start earlier than our scheduled tee time. The course was nice and in good condition. We both had a mix of good hits and ones we wished we could do over. Darrell managed to lead at the turn. Kris played the back nine better, but...
Read more

Camp Blanding Joint Training Center

Image
Trying to plan today last night was loose at best as all the weather apps we use indicated 40% chance of rain, or higher.  Both where we played golf yesterday, as well as where we were headed.  There seemed to be a dip in the rain likelihood between 9am and noon around Starke, FL as well as warmer temperatures forecast, so we decided to get an early start and drive the 2 hours down to Starke, FL, where there were two different 9-hole courses to select from. Woke up to 55 degrees in Waycross and were on the road about 7:30.  We plugged in directions for the closer of the two courses which had slightly better reviews figuring that if it was closed or crowded, we could wander over to the other course.  We enjoyed 4-lane roads (65mph speed limit) till we got to the Florida border, as well as temperatures climbing as we went further south.  On the way down, Kris checked for a Starbucks near Starke, FL, and found there weren’t any. ...
Read more

Ridgway-Ourey-Silverton-Telluride, CO - STR-2021-15

Image
Sunday, 4 July Not very long after getting Sprinty settled in the Pa—Co-Chu-Puk campground, we got a text from Tom saying they were settled in their campsite in the Elk Ridge Campground. We broke camp to drive to one of the three other campground loops at Ridgway State Park to plan the week. Tom offered to drive their truck if Darrell would plan the week. After sharing ideas and reviewing what was open, when, we came up with a plan for each of the next four days. Monday, 5 July - Silverton As Sprinty is sleeping in four different places in five nights, he had to vacate his site while his humans went off adventuring with Tom and Heidi.   The plan was to park Sprinty in the state park marina as checkin for Sprinty's next site was not until afternoon. Tom and Heidi were going to pick us up there in their truck at 8:30 for a day of adventuring. All set, we started off for Silverton, CO. For about 200 feet. Tom and Heidi's Ford F-150 had the AdvanceTrac li...
Read more