Hacienda RV Resort | Stahmann's Pecan Farm

Wednesday - 20 November 2002: 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