As we entered Arizona, the summer monsoon hung around the edges of the Sonoran Desert.The winding roads through the red rocked canyons outside of Sedona are a bit cavernous at times.I’ll take these red canyons any day over taking Tinkerbell through the Pennsylvania Turnpike.Ziggy relaxed while Frankie hatched a plan to overcome his inability to type on a computer keyboard. He’s not going to let the lack of opposable thumbs stop him from mastering technology. Frankie is now learning Chat GPT and mastering the world of AI.Always the nervous one, Austin found it hard to relax driving so close to the rocky canyon.Soon, we were in Tucson! We stopped at the place we ALWAYS stop after a Tinkerbell Trip: Dairy Queen to get our Oreo Blizzard fix! The ice cream gives us the energy we need to begin the big “unpack” when we get home. And then… we were home!A family of owls had taken up residence in the tree at the end of our driveway. “Who?” they asked. “Who?!” they beseeched. “Who are you to enter our domain?!” they screeched. They were clearly not happy to see Tinkerbell. Although the cat inside the bus looked mighty tasty.
We pulled Tinkerbell gingerly into the driveway.
And were greeted with a surprise Welcome Home sign!
Our neighbors, Gino and Joanne Zizzo, planted the happy sign, which made every one of us smile! Thank you, Gino and Joanne!
Look at those dog smiles!Even the cactus at the top of the driveway welcomed us home with a fragrant blossom!And then we walked inside and saw four months of mail that Gino, who proudly belongs to the obsessive-compulsive disorder club of Tucson, had organized and characterized for our perusal and ultimate admiration. None of the mail was addressed to Ziggy. He grabbed his favorite Tucson toy and squeaked it loudly until Frankie pounced out of his carrier to escape the high-pitched melody.Austin jumped onto his favorite place in the whole wide world and howled in delight, “I’m hooooooooooome!”Frankie took to his favorite spot as well: the edge of the living room chair. It’s the perfect perch from which to see everything inside – and outside – the house. He wanted to keep an eye on the owls. Frankie was also watching the well-fed coyote who, in our absence, had claimed a portion of our yard as his personal hunting ground.
As soon as we got our domesticated animals safe and settled, we raced next door to the Zizzo Abode to thank them for the signage, the mail sorting, and plant watering. And one more thing…
Gino and Joanne kindly kept our Mercedes convertible in their garage during our trip. They took good care of the German Lady Sophia, taking her for short spins. Gino kept us appraised through glorious texts about the poor German girl’s loneliness. Jay gave Lady Sophia a big hug while Joanne laughed and acknowledged the insanity of men and their cars. And now… Tinkerbell is home. And the unpacking begins. We relaxed that evening by finishing a puzzle we had started the month before we left on the Summer of 2025 Tour. Tinkerbell quickly fell asleep as the colorful desert sun set in front of her. Jay went out back to make sure no other critters had decided to call our backyard home while we were away. Thankfully, no snakes or bobcats were slithering or prowling around the pool.The next evening, our nephew Ian came to visit and welcome us home. We watched a football game (and the Vikings lost of course) and caught up on all of our summer adventures. Austin couldn’t have gotten any closer to Ian.
Since life is not a fairy tale, much as we want it to be sometimes, a small hiccup arose the next day.
When the Tucson sun began beating on Tinkerbell, the only motor in all of her air conditioning units that had not been replaced by the Iowian Yodas, decided it was time to go to the great a/c motor cloud in the sky.
Because Jay (and Ziggy) were now both certified A/C Yodas, together they were able to pull out the motor. Frankie used his AI skills and ordered a new one from Amazon. In the 110-degree heat of September Tucson, Jay fixed the very last motor that needed replacing on all of Tinkerbell’s air conditioning units. Please take note of the ingenious use of an old hot tub cover that Jay re-purposed into a mechanic tent to shield him from the brutal sun while he worked his A/C magic.
That evening, our fellow RVer Tucson friends, Mary and Randy, invited us over to for dinner to commiserate about our A/C woes and celebrate their latest RV home: a beautiful Newmar Montain Aire!
We met Randy and Mary through their dog Lexi. Lexi and Ziggy are both Aussies and they immediately fell in love on our walks. Randy says I talked them into getting an RV. I probably did 😉 And, yes, they’re happy RVers!Naturally, Austin found a new favorite place in Mary and Randy’s new condo-on-wheels (COW). Randy and Mary are now seasoned RVers. Like Jay, Randy has become pretty good at fixing things he didn’t even know existed before owning an RV.
The next evening, we took the Zizzos out to dinner and to a musical performance at The Gaslight Theater. It wasn’t a classic performance of the Phantom of the Opera. It was a musical full of puns and hilarious plays on words, characters, and storylines.
The Zizzos had never experienced The Gaslight, which is a Tucson favorite known for taking famous movies or plays and turning them into musical farces guaranteed to make you laugh for an entire two hours. It’s one of our favorite places. And now it’s one of the Zizzo’s favorite places too!Gino humored Jay and wore his matching Buc-ees shirt that we picked up for him at the beginning of our trip. They donned their Phantom masks and were in full Phantom mode by the time the show started. We knew another monsoon was due to arrive, so Jay took Tink to her safe place, an indoor RV storage facility a few miles away. And the monsoon arrived right on schedule! We even had the misfortune of one of Colorado’s famous river toads make an appearance in our backyard for the first time. This is not the toad we found butt it’s a good picture of what one of these monsters looks like. They weigh about nine pounds, and they come out of their ground homes after a monsoon to mate. No big deal except if a dog so much as sniffs one of these bad boys, the poison from the toad can kill a dog in less than 10 minutes. Tucson locals know how to flush their dogs’ mouths immediately after coming in contact with these Toads. Tucson locals also know that if a human (not necessarily a smart human) licks one of these toads, the poison can give the human a psychedelic high. We haven’t tried it. Pretty sure we won’t.
How does one top off a monsoon and poisonous toads? With a haircut of course!
Jay has been growing his ponytail for a few years. Our hairdresser, Katie from BrennaV, has been wanting to cut Jay’s hair since the ponytail dream began sprouting. Jay had decided early on in our trip that he was ready to let go of his ponytail dream. This is all that remains of Jay’s Little Pony.Ahhhhh….. he feels so much better! And he looks even more handsome than I ever dreamed!
Butt, we had to figure out what to do with all that leftover hair…
With Halloween just around the corner, Austin grabbed a few tufts, and with Frankie’s AI research, was able to dye the hair into a Tina Turner-like wig.Ziggy took things a little more Zen. He put on a Beatles mop-top, some peace regalia and called himself “Ringo.”
Almost the End!
You’ve read the blog of our Summer of 2025 Tour. Thank you so much!
Reading your comments, texts and emails about the blog posts made us so happy. Our friends joined us on our journey! Hearing from you motivated us to keep blogging and I’m glad we did. Thank you again. We love you.
Coming Up: You Ask, We Answer
We’d like to dedicate the last blog post (the one that’s coming up) to answering your questions and talking about lessons learned from our trip. Our final blog post will feature the people we love: YOU!
We’d like to hear from you. Please let us know – through comments, emails, texts, carrier pigeon, whatever works for you – your thoughts and questions about our Summer of 2025 Tour.
Ask as many questions as you want. Nothing is off limits. Well, there is one thing off limits: don’t ask me the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow 😉
Please send your comments, thoughts, and questions – we can’t wait to hear from you and share it all in our final blog post from the Summer of 2025 Tour!
I love the pictures of the pups. And, Ziggy and his girlfriend make a handsome couple. Austin seems to prefer people. And, Frankie just looks like trouble. As for the frog, I think Kerry might lick it. It is always wonderful to get home.
Tinkerbell's Travels 
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