First trip in a new RV, day 3—Confessions of an art thief

We drove to Tubac today, south of Tucson. It’s an artsy little village with a few shops, not much there. But I took some photos of someone's artwork on display in the patio of a shop—from outside the property—and the owner-witch came out pointed to the “no photos” sign. Okay, fair enough. I stopped. But then she called me a thief for photographing her copyrighted artwork. I told her I would delete the photos from my camera, for which she thanked me; but she said she didn't spend a hundred thousand dollars on her education just to have people steal her artwork—and yes, I was still a thief. I did not argue with her. There were four photos, and I did delete them, and that was no loss. My wife told me later I shouldn’t get steamed about it, but I did. The photo at the right is from down the street.

We drove from there to Nogales, but didn’t cross the border or even get out of the car. It looks like a down-on-the-heels, plug-ugly little burg. Two images of our few minutes in Nogales stand out in my mind, both from billboards: the first a photo of a young murdered  woman with a reward offer for information leading to the arrest of her killer, the second a photo of a suspect wanted for some other murder, with a reward offer, etc. The only thing I did downtown was to look for highway I-19 North to get back out again.

The Internet connection has been awful here at the Beaudry RV park; they had advertised it as being included in the price, but apparently started charging in the middle of our stay. So I’ve paid, but lately haven't had the connection anyway. The heck with it. I’ve spent too much time getting peeved about it to bother anymore tonight, and tomorrow we are moving on to Ajo anyway.

This is an interesting place as RV parks go. We thought our 31-foot class B was big, but most others here are class A’s and dwarf ours. Nancy insists she doesn't have RV envy—what we have is just right, we both agree. In between parking spaces are lemon, grapefruit, and orange trees, all with ripe fruit hanging down. The last two mornings we have picked fallen grapefruit off the ground and eaten them for breakfast. Tonight we expect a frost, and that may kill off the remaining fruit. Too bad if it does, because a lot is still hanging on the trees.

Here are images from yesterday’s trip to the ghost town of Harshaw: An abandoned building and a grave in the cemetery across the street. You won’t find much else.