A little over an hour's drive from where I live in Tucson, Arizona is the little town of St. David, Arizona.

Founded by Mormons in 1877, St. David is a small community that is in the process of moving away from an economy centered on agriculture to a service based economy centered around tourism. While located in the San Pedro river valley, it is somewhat high desert as the valley sits at an altitude of almost 3,700 feet. In addition to the altitude, which provides for some relief from the summer heat, the well watered valley is a green oasis covered with numerous trees which shade and help cool the air further.

On the eastern edge of the Town of St. David is a small resort, originally known as Twin Lakes because of its two large spring-fed ponds, but now a part of the Western Horizons Resorts group.

Like the other resorts in the group, Twin Lakes is a membership owned resort for Recreational Vehicles (RVs). While the majority of the land is devoted to small plots where members can park their RVs and connect to water and power, it also has a number of other amenities including a collection of casitas (small, 1 - 2 bedroom, adobe cottages with kitchen, bath and living room) for members who do not have RVs. They also allow tent camping on the RV sites and used to have a half dozen permanent RVs which members could rent while visiting.

Even though I have never owned, and have no desire to own, an RV, I did purchase a membership a number of years ago as an inexpensive place to escape the summer heat and give my, then, young sons a place to fish and hike.

As the boys got older, they lost interest in these get aways and my membership has sat unused for the last half dozen years. I even tried to sell it once but the resale market is such that the best offer I received was a request to give it to the buyer for free. But now my youngest son is interested again and my new stepson is interested in fishing so, on a recent Saturday when my wife and our two teenage sons who still live with us all had off (I always have weekends off with my job), I decided to make a day trip to Twin Lakes and introduce my new wife to our rural getaway (and also escape Tucson's 100+ heat that day).